Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Most of the staff in University Hospital Kerry are too busy dealing with a hospital that was built in 1984 to serve 120,000 people, when County Kerry now has a population of 160,000, to be out campaigning. There were glad when a review of the hospital was promised. A team visited the hospital and staff there were told a transformation team was needed. A review and interviews were carried out but in the past ten days or so, staff were told that that review has been shelved.

Staff are back to square one. I will give two examples. Oncology services in Kerry hospital include cancer patients and some of the most vulnerable people. Those with black humour are calling the oncology unit the homeless unit because, in the middle of the Covid pandemic, that unit was sent to palliative care. There was then a plan. Somebody thought it would be a great idea to spend €2 million to place the oncology unit in a private hospital, while that private hospital would invest a fraction of that amount. Thankfully, that idea was shelved but it is worrying that it was seriously considered. After palliative care, the unit is now being moved to the day ward. Oncology patients are on the day ward so surgeries for day patients have been cancelled and not one surgery has been carried out this year. Some 20 operations have been cancelled. The unit will probably be closed. If the last surgery is anything to go by, the day unit will probably be closed for months.

The stakes in healthcare services have never been higher. There have been decades of neglect in respect of staffing and infrastructure. We accept that cannot be fixed overnight but one person told me that hospital staff in Kerry are under nearly as much pressure as they were during Covid and there is no sign of improvements. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, recently reported that 20 patients were on trolleys in University Hospital Kerry. Last December, 36 patients had been waiting more than six months for inpatient procedures and 476 outpatients were waiting for the same time period. For a county the size of Kerry, these are extraordinary numbers.

With an ageing and rural population, in a county with high peripherality and three peninsulas, the solutions for Kerry are obvious. Beds mean staff who must be trained. Retention and training need to be prioritised. That includes other areas. There are ways to ease the pressure. There must be more public involvement in community hospital step-down facilities and 70 or so beds.

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