Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to speak to this motion because regional hospitals are vital in our communities, yet what the Government is talking about doing in Navan hospital amounts to taking a sledgehammer to a supporting role. I commend Deputies Guirke and O’Rourke on highlighting the downgrading of Meath regional hospital because centralising expertise is worthy and all very well. Nevertheless, doing so implies the rest of the health service around it is working well, but in the Navan area and, indeed, throughout the health service, it is not.

A total of 1.3 million people are awaiting healthcare and the two neighbouring hospitals, Connolly Hospital and Drogheda hospital, are at breaking point. The local GPs are on their knees and there are just too many patients. We all have a lot of constituents coming to us saying they cannot get a GP, so a GP referral just will not work. The GPs who are there are just exhausted, overworked and undervalued. They are exasperated by dealing with a hospital system that is perpetually in crisis. Who in the name of God looked at this healthcare disaster and thought we should close the emergency department and critical beds in Navan hospital when the surrounding hospitals are simply out the door?

Who in the Minister’s Department agreed that this would be good idea? It certainly was not the people who live in my neighbouring county of Meath. I am sure it was not the local healthcare providers in Connolly Hospital or Drogheda either. It seems that the Department of Health does not have a notion of what is going on. It is like the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage or the effects of the increase in the cost of living, because the Government making the decisions is so far removed from the people who must feel their effects. We see what is happening in Meath from the perspective of our hospital in Naas and we want to make sure that Naas is okay. I have spoken to the Minister about trying to get the maternity section back in Naas. We want that and we have wonderful staff in Naas General Hospital. The Minister knows I am campaigning to get the Coombe antenatal clinic reopened there and they are talking about not doing it. Local care is progressive and especially with climate change coming upon us, local care should be our aim.

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