Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have four minutes to address this matter. I will speak slowly to let the figures sink in. The outpatient waiting list for orthopaedic services at University Hospital Galway includes 6,487 patients. Some 80 of those have been waiting for more than four years. Some 292 patients have been waiting for between three and four years. The inpatient waiting list has 1,390 patients. In a letter dated 11 December I made representations for a specific patient and raised some general points. The specific individual was put on the waiting list on 24 January this year. They were categorised as "urgent" and told there was an 18-month waiting list. Given those figures, I would say that is the very best estimate.

The reasons for this are where we really need the Minister of State's help. First, the service has developed a significant backlog of patients due to demand for the service outweighing capacity. Unfortunately, more people have become sick than the service is capable of helping. Imagine that. The second reason is that operating capacity has been significantly reduced since September 2017 when the hospital roofs began to leak and water came in. I will take the Minister of State on a quick tour of the four years since then. We have been told that the HSE plans to replace the theatre by the end of next year. This operating theatre was leaking in 2017. In 2017, all of the TDs in the area met with the then Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris. Following that, we were told on 29 November 2017 that a tendering process was progressing for the procurement of a temporary theatre facility. We were told this was being pursued as a matter of urgency. The word "urgency" seems to have taken on a new meaning. This is the 21st century. Waiting lists are at this level just before Christmas. I am only mentioning a selection of the events surrounding this issue.

We were going to facilitate some of the patients in the hospital facilities outside of Merlin Park. Some were to be accommodated in private hospitals. We then learned that very few were cared for in University Hospital Galway facilities and none was facilitated in private hospitals. We were told that Saolta University Health Care Group was working to have a modular theatre open in mid-2019 and enabling works were being carried out. Putting it as benignly as I can, the Minister subsequently had to clarify that he was given contradictory information. He was told that there was an enabling contract. In a letter on 5 March, he stated that he was subsequently told it was actually a letter of intent. That letter of intent was then withdrawn. We were then told there would be a rapid build, which has not happened.

I conclude by referring to a letter I read out previously, in which a surgeon stated that there were 2,000 people on the waiting list. That is half the current number. He stated that this was too big for management to address and that it was a regional crisis. He stated that it was unbearable for the patients, who were clinically deteriorating.

I ask the Minister of State to take a hands-on approach to this matter. At the very least, I ask him to agree that this is unacceptable and to give me a date on which the theatre will be open.

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