Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies Harkin and MacSharry for raising the issue of staffing and services at SUH. I was sitting here today when Deputy Harkin raised it on Leaders' Questions. SUH is a model 3 hospital with a 24-7 emergency medicine service. It delivers a wide range of local and regional services on an inpatient, day case and outpatient basis, including a range of specialties such as cardiology, medical oncology, critical care, cancer, maternity, paediatrics, radiology, acute medicine and acute surgery, as well as a number of regional specialties provided on an outreach basis to Letterkenny University Hospital.

As the House is aware, the Covid-19 pandemic led to an unprecedented interruption to normal health services both in the community and acute hospitals system across the country. The HSE, hospital groups and individual hospitals continue to plan for the challenges of providing health services while maintaining patient safety in a Covid environment. This includes planning for winter, planning for service resumption and waiting list management as well as the ongoing Covid-19 response.

The HSE winter plan for 2022 to 2023, which was published in October, will support acute and community services this winter to respond to anticipated high levels of emergency attendances and admissions across the acute sector, long waiting times in emergency departments and high occupancy rates across acute hospital settings.

This Government recognises that SUH has a critical role to play in services in the north west. This is reflected in the significant increase in resources allocated to the hospital. In 2022, the budget allocation for the hospital was €160.8 million, up from €130 million in 2018. From the end of 2020 to the middle of 2022, staff had increased more than 12%, including 71 nursing and midwifery staff. In July 2022, 1,885 whole-time equivalent staff were employed by SUH, which is a 12.5% increase on the end of 2020. This included 72 nursing and midwifery whole-time equivalents notwithstanding the issues raised by the Deputies.

This Government also recognises the capacity issues at SUH. As a result of the 34 senior consultants emailing the Minister for Health, the Minister met with consultant doctors from the hospital yesterday evening to hear their concerns. The emergency department is under sustained pressure. Between January and October, there were more than 37,000 attendances, up 4.8% on the same period in 2019 and 12.2% higher than the five-year average. Associated metrics such as waiting times in the emergency department and trolley numbers are also increased on previous years.

Hospital management, in concert with the Saolta University Healthcare Group and the wider HSE, has advanced several capital projects in order to address such capacity issues. These include an emergency department modular unit, additional ICU isolation rooms, a 42-bed ward block extension, a second CT scanner and MRI replacement and a new emergency department surgical block.

In particular, the proposal for a new surgical and emergency department block will involve construction of a new multi-storey extension to the hospital. This facility will provide the consolidation of theatres, provide surgical and maternity wards together with a new emergency department, radiology and integrated paediatric departments. In 2022, funding was allocated to appoint consultants to complete a strategic assessment report-preliminary business case. As this would be a major capital project, this is one of the steps required to progress this project under the public spending code. This Government recognises the valuable work done by the staff at SUH and aims to support the ongoing development of services.

See this speech in context