Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the people of Laois, I have to express severe disappointment that the Minister, Deputy Harris, is not here today. The Minister should be here because the problems at the Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise are firmly within his resolution. He is the only person who can solve them. In light of his failure to attend this debate, I formally invite him to visit the hospital in Portlaoise in the coming weeks between now and the Christmas period. He made a visit there during the Christmas period over two years ago, but he has not been seen or heard from at the hospital since then. The inaction of the Minister for Health with regard to a report that is on his desk is the key source of the problem at the hospital in Portlaoise. The proposal that has been on the Minister's desk since September 2017 involves the full closure of the emergency, maternity and paediatric care departments at the hospital, as well as the cessation of all inpatient surgery there. A small amount of such surgery is taking place there at the moment. The report in question, which was prepared on foot of detailed consultation by the HSE and senior management in the Department of Health, has been left sitting on the Minister's desk for more than two years. Therefore, the position set out in the report remains the current position of the HSE and the senior management personnel. The Minister's inaction is causing serious problems. It is undermining current services in the hospital. Why would people seek to take up employment in the hospital as consultants, surgeons, doctors, non-consultant doctors, nurses or care staff when they know this cloud is hanging over it as a consequence of the Minister's failure to take action?

The previous Topical Issue debate showed us what happens when an accident and emergency department is closed in a region without the promised additional facilities being provided in the locations where patients are expected to go. That is the state we are at. According to this report, the closure of the services at Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise that I have mentioned would necessitate the provision of a minimum of €140 million to upgrade services at Tullamore and Naas hospitals and to facilitate the transfer of all births in Portlaoise hospital to the Coombe Hospital. That money is simply not available. It cannot and should not happen. We are formally asking the Minister to visit Portlaoise and to make a positive statement on the future of the hospital there. The current level of services should be supported and all necessary funds should be provided for consultant posts to facilitate the development of services into the future. Parts of County Laois are only an hour from Dublin. People in County Laois are used to travelling to St. James's Hospital for critical hospital surgeries. We are all familiar with that. Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise, St. James's Hospital and the Coombe Hospital are part of the Dublin Midlands hospital group. It is good that complicated births are transferred from Portlaoise to the Coombe. More than 400 children were delivered in Portlaoise hospital last year. I would say the hospital got close attention in the form of HIQA reports, etc., as a result of the controversy of some years ago. As I have said previously, the circumstances of the death of a child in the hospital were covered up by senior HSE management.

It took a great deal of legal work to establish that. People knew that a child had died at the hospital and HSE senior management covered it up. While there were with no repercussions for the HSE, the reputation of the hospital was damaged. Following on from the HIQA inspections, most people will accept that maternity services at Portlaoise hospital over the past two or three year have been among the safest in the country. I am not aware of any maternal or infant death on delivery in recent times. As a result of a light having been shone on the facility it has improved.

It would be a shame if the Minister were to proceed with the closure of the maternity services and emergency department. If the emergency department is closed, the maternity ward would have to be closed because it would not be safe. We need confirmation that the emergency department will continue to operate 24-7, 365 days of the year, as it currently does. If the Minister would confirm that, we could get on with the future development of the hospital.

See this speech in context