Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. I agree that the time patients are having to wait in emergency departments is not acceptable. Much of that is due to Covid and it is frustrating for everyone, including the patients, our healthcare professionals and all of us, because there is a level of capacity in the system now that has never been there before. There are more hospital beds, doctors, nurses and healthcare assistants than ever before. There is more community-based care than there has ever been. There are more home care hours and there is more preventative community care. One would expect the emergency departments not to be under the pressure they are.

A big part of the problem is the unprecedented level of presentations. May of this year saw the highest monthly national emergency department attendance on record. That was May, not December or January. Not only was that number the highest on record, the people coming in are older and more frail as a result of many of them having been at home for two years during the pandemic. I know the Deputy has acknowledged that.

What are we doing about it? I am working with the Department and the HSE to put together a short-term plan for all 29 emergency departments. There is now a draft plan in place and being worked out. More and more detail is being added to it. That plan is for all 29 emergency departments. It is considering how we keep people out of the emergency departments unless they really need to be there. Injury units, access to GPs on call, community-based care, older person intervention teams, home supports and other measures are the alternatives. When people need to come to emergency departments, we must consider whether the hospitals have the resources they need in the emergency departments and elsewhere in the hospital. Something that is critical, and the closer we look at this issue the more we realise this problem must be resolved, is the discharge option. For example, one of the big issues in Limerick is that patients are not being discharged as quickly as they should be. It would help with patient flow in the emergency department if they were.

See this speech in context