Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

It is estimated that every year in this State, there are 360 excess deaths as a result of accident and emergency department overcrowding. That is to say double the population of this Dáil die every year as a result of overcrowding in accident and emergency departments. However, new research in Britain has shown that this is likely to be an underestimate. The Emergency Medicine Journalfound that there was a significant increase in the death rate for patients who had to spend more than five hours in an accident and emergency department. Senior clinicians have now also indicated a clear link between those who have to wait on trolleys and on chairs in accident and emergency departments and excess deaths.

Thus far this year, 100,000 people have had to wait on trolleys in hospitals, which is a record level. Thus far this year, we have also seen record waiting times for people who were seriously ill, with some people waiting 13 hours for admission in hospitals. Pets in this country are currently seen quicker by vets than patients are in accident and emergency departments throughout the State. Last year 75,000 people left accident and emergency departments in this country without being seen or treated. Accident and emergency departments are such a disaster zone in these places that seriously ill people and seriously injured people who went to accident and emergency departments waited for hours and then in their thousands left without being treated whatsoever.

In my area, sick people are being brought by ambulance from Navan to Drogheda to wait for hours, only to then be brought by ambulance back to Navan to be treated, such is the pressure in Drogheda at the moment. Long wait times in accident and emergency departments and the proliferation of trolleys are actually killing hundreds of people in this State. I will repeat that. Long wait times in accident and emergency departments and the proliferation of trolleys are killing hundreds of people in this State every single year. All we have seen from the Government on this is inaction. It is as if we have reached a tolerable level of death in terms of hospital overcrowding and accident and emergency department waiting times. Nobody is being held to account in HIQA. I have asked HIQA to investigate the effect that overcrowding has on excess mortality in this country but it said it was not even allowed to do that. HIQA cannot even investigate that particular issue.

Worse than this, when we have accident and emergency departments such as those in Navan and Drogheda literally out the door in terms of patients, when staff are leaving the health service in their droves because of the pressure and in the middle of the winter surge, the HSE has decided to close the accident and emergency department in County Meath. This is the same HSE which has now announced a two-step plan to close the accident and emergency department in Navan, which was start on 12 December and will be completed in the new year. The HSE has given the figures to the Minister for Health a number of times over the last year. It looks like it is using the Cabinet reshuffle and the maternity leave of the Minister, Deputy McEntee, to force through its plan to close the accident and emergency department. Will the Government sit on its hands on this or will it represent the people that elected them in County Meath?

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