Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Maidir le fíricí, yesterday the Taoiseach said that 10,000 social houses were built last year, so the Tánaiste might check the record when he accuses others of falsifying information. Faraor, táim ar ais arís go Páirc Mhuirlinne. Tá dhá obrádlann as úsaíd de bharr an báistí atá ag stealladh isteach. Tá an dá obrádlann as ord. Tá litir agam atáim chun léamh isteach sa taifead, chomh dona is atá an liosta. I am raising Merlin Park Hospital again. I raised it with the Taoiseach in February and again over the past year. Unfortunately, in ainneoin rudaí a bheith ag feabhsú, tá siad ag dul in olcas. We now have 2,000 people suffering on a waiting list for serious surgery on shoulders and ankles. I ask the Tánaiste and his colleagues to put themselves in the position of those people who are now on a waiting list. The rain poured in while the Government was talking about a rainy day fund and it put two theatres out of operation. The list has gone up exponentially and I now have a letter from the consultant orthopaedic surgeon, on behalf of ten surgeons, telling us that the list is now 2,000 and has been accumulating on foot of the lack of infrastructure. The situation is becoming unbearable for patients who are clinically worsening as they wait to be admitted for surgery. They are clinically disimproving. At this stage, it is incumbent on senior management in either Saolta or the Health Service Executive to make a public statement to the people on their waiting list, either to say that they can handle the problem or that the problem is too big for them to address. It is unprecedented for a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, on behalf of nine others, to write to Deputies and to the Minister on more than one occasion to highlight this situation. He stated it is now becoming a growing regional crisis and it gave him no satisfaction to write that.

My question to the Tánaiste is as it was in February and all of last year. How could it be so difficult to put up two modular theatres? What type of health executive do we have in Saolta? It told us last February that tender documents had gone out and in May that contract documents had gone out, were about to be signed and the modular theatres were about to go up. On Tuesday, we found out that the whole process has been stopped. We do not know what happened but I know that more than 2,000 patients are suffering with no other alternative arrangements having been made for them, with a series of misrepresentations from Saolta, even to the Minister for Health. He understood that the contracts had been signed. I have asked for an urgent meeting with the Minister for Health. I appeal again to the Government to take a hands-on approach and put itself in the position of any of those patients who are waiting for complex surgery because the Saolta University Health Care Group cannot provide modular theatres. What hope have we for a children's hospital?

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