Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to put it on the record that I always thought that when a Minister could not come to a Topical Issue debate it was because he or she was not available. The Minister for Health just walked through the Dáil Chamber less than one minute ago so that is disrespectful. We always gave Ministers a bye if they were carrying out other important business but the Minister for Health walked past us there. It is not good enough and that is no disrespect to the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, who is here in his place. That shows a disregard for Members and for the House.

I will return to the matter I want to raise. If this report was available at the time I could have raised it prior to the general election in 2020. I am speaking of the report of the independent review of unscheduled care performance. It is quite a damning report and I hope the Minister for Health can address why it was not published before. It took a freedom of information request for this report to be made available. The report reviews emergency care in nine of our hospitals. The report refers to unsafe treatment caused by overcrowding and staff shortages and it was completed prior to the Covid-19 pandemic when staff shortages dramatically increased due to the spread of the virus. Its findings highlight a level of dysfunction at the heart of the HSE, with some hospital staff members stating that they did not know who was in charge. Many of the issues that were highlighted remain. The accident and emergency department wait times in 2022 look like they will reach pre-Covid levels with more than 51,000 patients already waiting longer than 12 hours in accident and emergency departments this year. Some 13,000 people have already waited more than 24 hours for admission. These are incredible figures when one considers the research report by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine in the UK that there is, on average, one excess death for every 67 patients who stay in an accident and emergency department for eight to 12 hours.

I have a particular concern about the plight of patients and staff at University Hospital Limerick, a hospital that continues to have huge numbers of people treated on trolleys and in corridors. Almost 1,600 people have been treated on trolleys there every month of 2020 to date. Despite the best efforts of the wonderful but overworked staff there, the issues of long wait times and treatment on hospital trolleys continue unabated. I spoke to a senior staff member at the hospital today who gave me a shocking first-hand account of how tragically challenging the jobs of staff there have become. The member of staff contacted me in desperation about how difficult the work environment they are facing is. I have no doubt that people are dying unnecessarily due to these failures. Yesterday evening there was only one electrocardiogram, ECG, available across the three wards in the accident and emergency department. Apparently all the other machines were broken. That is one ECG to cover three wards, the triage area and the resuscitation sections. That is a scandal. These are important but basic pieces of equipment that should be readily available to staff. It is a major hospital and the fact that just one ECG is in operation for the accident and emergency department is simply not good enough for me or for the people of Limerick. This is a critical issue but on a more basic level, staff members told me today that there is often a challenge to get blankets and pillows for patients who are waiting. The healthcare staff do their best. Staying in hospital is a worrying experience and even the provision of this as an iota of comfort seems to be a cause of difficulty.

I am from Limerick and these patients could be my friends or family members; they are not simply statistics. The hospital zones are so full that in zones A, B and C of University Hospital Limerick yesterday, trolleys were two-deep in hallways, meaning that patients being moved had to either walk or be transferred through back doors so as not to interfere with those people lingering in the hallways. It is worth remembering that zone C is a Covid area so infection is widespread because people are next to each other.

We would all agree that the Minister for Health has an abundance of challenges facing him but he seems to be getting nowhere fast. I have appealed to him, and I do so again, to expedite the construction of the 96-bed unit at University Hospital Limerick. While it will not solve the problems of the hospital it would be an important signal to the people of Limerick that they are not being ignored and that the Government is committed to rectifying the problems at University Hospital Limerick. Reducing accident and emergency department waiting times is just one part of the puzzle. It needs to be done but it needs to be done as part of wider health reforms. We can invest in GP capacity to reduce hospital admissions and we can increase capacity in staffing numbers in our hospitals. These things take investment and we need to see this Government commit to this major investment.

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