Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Late last night, I had occasion to visit Naas General Hospital in response to a call from a constituent whose child had been admitted at 5 a.m. yesterday. This child had previously been in the care of child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, and has difficulty getting a place. It is expected that there will be an announcement on an extension to the Lakeview mental health unit in Naas hospital shortly.

What I am about to describe applies to many other hospitals throughout the country. What I saw at almost midnight last night was chaotic. It was a sad reflection on all the work done by many people, including by the Minister and Minister of State, and by various people in this House who have raised this issue in respect of this and other hospitals. It was chaotic in the sense that patients who had been there for ten, 12, 14 hours or more - some were into their second day - were being manhandled on to trolleys in a narrow corridor.

Only one doctor, a registrar, was available. I do not know why that was. No bed was available, even though the parents of this child had made repeated interventions, all to no avail, with consequent stress on the patients. It is not possible to deliver an effective, efficient and workable service in the way the staff were trying to deliver last night. It was not fair to the staff, patients and the public who expect more. It was not fair on the Minister and Minister of State.

I make this suggestion. I do not care what the cause is; it is time to do something about it. We have all gone down this route previously and raised this issue. Every time we are told of some difficulty or snarl-up be it a lack of beds, space, accommodation or something else. We expect to deliver a reliable health service, and to deal with patients and emergencies. I do not know what would happen if an emergency occurred in a situation like that. However, it would not be possible to respond in the way that one would be expected to respond to an emergency.

I ask for an immediate review of the facilities at Naas hospital with a view to ensuring that day patients can get through the emergency department, ED, in a reasonably efficient, effective and reliable manner. There is nothing as bad as lack of confidence in a system. Without doubt there is a lack of confidence in the system. The staff are not able to resolve the problems. There is a requirement for an evaluation of the situation from above to put in place what is required to deliver the service. There is not much sense in telling me in a year or two that we will have the problem resolved. That will no longer work. I do not blame any of the Ministers personally, but the time is up and we cannot wait any longer. Something needs to be done about it now.

See this speech in context