Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

At the start of this year, 76-year-old Mary Hughes was in Roscommon hospital and was transferred to Portiuncula after suffering a seizure. Mary passed away on 4 January at Portiuncula hospital after waiting more than seven hours for a bed before finally being admitted to a ward. Mary had been forced to leave a bed in Roscommon hospital to go onto a trolley in Portiuncula hospital. Her daughter, Edel, spoke to the Roscommon Heraldand she said:

My poor mother went to Portiuncula unwell, and it is not so much a case that she died because of it, it is more her passing was not as peaceful as it could and should have been. The crisis increased her suffering and ours. The system is hurting people beyond belief.

Sadly, this is one of many personal stories emerging around this country.

If we delve down into the numbers of patients waiting on trolleys to date in 2023 and analyse this as a percentage of the number of beds in each hospital, which I believe is a far better reflection of the pressure that each hospital is under, Portiuncula hospital, with just 157 beds and an average of 22 patients on trolleys each day this year, has a 40% greater demand on its beds than the headline-grabbing university hospital in Limerick and a whopping 325% greater demand on beds than Galway university hospital. We should not be surprised because not one additional bed has been put into the hospital since the emergency department was closed at Roscommon hospital in 2011 even though Portiuncula has taken the bulk of the Roscommon referrals.

In June 2020, I wrote to the then Minister for Health, the chief executive of the HSE and the Secretary General of the Department of Health pointing out the desperate situation in Portiuncula, which at that point had lost one in ten of its beds due to the Covid reconfiguration at the hospital. At that stage, the hospital had put forward a proposal seeking two modular buildings, one of which was to provide the space needed in its emergency department to deal with the present demands that were being placed upon it. Thirty-one months later we are still awaiting a decision from HSE estates as an average of 42 patients a day lie on trolleys in that hospital. We need to see this project proceeded with - the modular emergency department - as a matter of urgency. I am asking for the Taoiseach's intervention and for his intervention in similar proposals in other hospitals that can ease the current crisis that we are facing.

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