Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

At Letterkenny University Hospital today, there were ten ambulances backed up at the emergency department. There is an unprecedented crisis in that department in terms of staffing, with morale extremely low. This is the outcome of a build-up of failures, for far too many years, to invest in beds, nurses and doctors in the hospital. Letterkenny is the major acute hospital in Donegal and the sixth largest hospital in the State, with more than 23,000 inpatients every year. However, it is 13th or 14th in the country in terms of funding. It has been clear for many years that it has not received the budget it requires. There is a profound crisis of morale among staff. They go to work every day in what can only be described as heroic circumstances but they are tired of being called heroes. They need the backing of the State.

That crisis of morale feeds into the waiting list crisis. In Letterkenny alone, there are 21,500 men, women and children on the waiting lists. Adding Sligo would probably take that total to 25,000 or 26,000 people on waiting lists out of a population of 160,000, many of them for more than one year or two years. This crisis has been created out of years of neglect. In community hospitals in Donegal, one in four beds were cut in the past 15 years. Community hospital resources are being cut and major hospitals are not being resourced. The impact of that is what we see today, with ten ambulances backed up at Letterkenny and staff at crisis point. I ask the Minister again to visit Letterkenny University Hospital as soon as possible, speak to the unions, staff and management and make the intervention that is required.

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