Dáil debates

Tuesday, 21 June 2022

Our Lady's Hospital Navan Emergency Services: Motion [Private Members]

 

8:10 pm

Photo of Peadar TóibínPeadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1 to amendment No. 1:

To delete all words from "notes that" down to and including "could be considered" and substitute the following: "calls for:
— the Government to end plans to close the ED in Our Lady's Hospital, Navan;

— the Government to remove the policy within Securing the Future of Smaller Hospitals: A Framework for Development to downgrade Our Lady's Hospital, Navan from a level 3 hospital to a level 2 hospital; and

— the necessary investment to be made by the HSE to restore acute surgical services in Our Lady's Hospital, Navan in order to provide a safe service to the 200,000 people living in Co. Meath"

There is a palpable sense of anger in County Meath at present regarding the Government and HSE plan to shut down Navan accident and emergency department. That department is without doubt the most important piece of health infrastructure we have. For us, it is a life-and-death issue. I attended the discussion on the future of Navan's accident and emergency department in the Department of Health last Monday. I was shocked, and the Minister must have had a sense of shock as well, because in all the presentations we received from the HSE on that day, no reference was made to overcrowding. The context of the crisis engulfing the accident and emergency system in this country was never mentioned. It is incomprehensible that the Government would consider closing our accident and emergency department at a time of record waiting times.

The HSE figures show that people are waiting up to 12 hours in Drogheda's accident and emergency department. At Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown just before Christmas, the staff had to come out on a picket due to the overcrowding conditions they were enduring in their accident and emergency department. The Mater Hospital, Dublin, and the Regional Hospital Mullingar have asked patients not to arrive in their accident and emergency departments due to overcrowding. Last week, 546 people were on trolleys throughout the State and that is in the middle of summer. At the meeting last Monday - I was amazed by the sentence - I heard the HSE state that people keep turning up at accident and emergency departments. Orthopaedic treatment and elective surgery in the hospital at Navan were suspended during the winter months because of the pressure on its accident and emergency. It is unbelievable the Government is seeking to close an emergency department that was overcrowded just a few months ago.

I have no faith in the HSE. I am told to have faith but it is impossible to do so. These are the people who closed the emergency departments in Ennis and Nenagh hospitals. These are the people who made the decisions that are precipitating the crisis in UHL at present. Under their stewardship, and this is very important, adverse incidents have jumped from 79,000 in 2017 to 105,000 just last year. That is an increase of 32% in the number of people who have suffered due to mistakes in clinical care. Extreme incidents, which include death and permanent incapacity, rose from 375 people in 2017 to 579 people just last year. The main cause, and this is crucial, is the fact the staff the Minister manages and is in charge of are under such extraordinary pressure.

Information I have received through a parliamentary question to the Minister has shown that if Navan accident and emergency is closed, it would push thousands of patients from a hospital group, Ireland East Hospital Group, with a lower level of adverse incidents into the RCSI Hospital Group, which has the highest level of adverse incidents in the country. I asked HIQA whether it has ever carried out an investigation into this; it said "No". I have asked HIQA if it has ever carried out an investigation into the effects of the closure of an accident and emergency department on patient outcomes. It has said "No". This is because we do not do investigations in this country into decisions made by senior HSE staff or Ministers that have enormous repercussions on the lives of people in this country.

The HSE is proposing a replacement for Navan, namely, a GP referral medical assessment unit, MAU. It states it will be a 24-hour service. How in the name of God can it be when GP offices close at 6 p.m. and when North-East Doctor on Call stated it would not accept patients who would normally have been dealt with by Our Lady's Hospital in Navan? The idea that it will be 24 hours is absolute nonsense. I will direct this key point to the Minister of State because he knows it as well as anybody else; it is nearly impossible as a person new to the county to get a GP. People are going to Dublin and elsewhere to get GPs. If someone wants an appointment with a GP, it could take up a fortnight to obtain one. Does anybody in their right mind think that a person suffering an emergency, or an accident or ill health, will ring his or her GP and wait for a fortnight to get a referral to an MAU? It will not happen. People will circumvent the MAU and go straight to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda.

I draw the Minister's attention a report published by the HSE a number of years ago. The report in question is available on Lenus and states that the new regional hospital should go to Navan because of the burgeoning population there. The HSE spent millions on that report and it is now pegging it into the bin. In late 2010, the Minister of State, Deputy English, and five other Fine Gael representatives stood outside the hospital in Navan and promised that a new regional hospital would be built in five years. It is nowhere to be seen. Mr. Thomas Lynch promised in front of 10,000 people at a march in Navan that he and Fianna Fáil would protect the accident and emergency department. He is now making arguments in public for the closure of that department. I will mention the Sinn Féin Private Members' motion. It is not strong enough. It studiously avoids calling on the Government not to close Navan accident and emergency.

I am proud to have been chair of the hospital campaign for the past ten years. We will not give up. We will fight for the retention. We will bring thousands of people onto the streets on 9 July. If the emergency department closes, it will cost significantly in human terms but it will also cost in political terms. There is no Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael Deputy in Roscommon. That should be remembered when Deputies vote.

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