Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister of State is probably aware, an unprecedented event took place over the weekend, when 34 consultants from all disciplines at Sligo University Hospital all sent emails to the Minister for Health and others highlighting that conditions for patients and staff at Sligo University Hospital, SUH, are completely unacceptable and verge on the unsafe at times. These emails did not come out of the blue.

The issues and these concerns have been building for years and have culminated in record numbers of people on trolleys - proportionately the worst in the country when you compare them with the number of beds in the corresponding hospitals and the ability of the hospital to absorb the number of people on trolleys.

This is the tip of the iceberg. That is what is visible. Underneath all of that is totally inadequate hospital infrastructure. The hospital has a single CT scanner. When it is out of action when it is being serviced as it needs to be, there is no scanner and that is the most basic requirement for any acute hospital. There is an ageing MRI scanner that is supposed to provide an imaging service for a quarter of a million people in the north west. There are many more shortcomings but I do not have time to go into them. The emails from the consultants spell them out in shocking detail. SUH is losing its staff and is finding it difficult to recruit. There is no doubt it is reaching a tipping point. There needs to be immediate systemic action first of all to refocus funding allocations to Sligo within the Saolta University Healthcare Group to begin to rebalance the imbalance that is there. Second, there is a need to prioritise the provision of fully operational medical equipment and sufficient amounts of it. Third, there is a need to accelerate the 42-bed block in parallel with surgical, maternity, paediatric, emergency department, radiology theatres and ICU.

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