Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion and thank Deputy McNamara for bringing it forward. I also welcome the fact the Minister of State is not opposing it. That is positive. I also welcome that she is accepting the amendment tabled by the Social Democrats. I have a particular interest, coming from Galway, in the elective hospital, the salaried position for GPs and, following on from Sláintecare, the regional health area, RHA, implementation plan. That is referenced in the amendment Deputy Shortall has tabled and I am sure she will come to that.

I recognise that Deputy Butler is a hardworking Minister of State. I have said this on the record repeatedly. I believe in a public health system, as I think she does. However, we are in a position with the problems in the health service that did not come about today or yesterday. I have often said, at the risk of boring people, that I spent ten years of my life on a health forum. I watched the systematic running down of our public health system. I will put it as bluntly as that. That is exactly what I watched from 2006 to 2016. I stand here today in the knowledge that yesterday, 38 people in University Hospital Galway were on trolleys, out of 565 nationally. On 3 May, there were 50 out of 712 in the country. I have just picked different dates because there is a range of figures. On 3 January this year there were a particularly savage 77 patients on trolleys, the worst since the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation started to keep records in 2006, which coincidentally was the year I joined the health forum.

The motion seeks to take the pressure off general hospitals, which are the model 3 and model 4 hospitals. It should have happened years ago, really. Back in 2013, the HSE published a document called Securing the Future of Smaller Hospitals: a Framework for Development. That was ten years ago and we are still just beginning to touch the surface of it. I do not wish to be parochial but looking at Galway, it really puts the focus on the wonderful language and the vision versus the actual reality on the ground like the trolleys. In Galway, we have a nursing home i gcroílár na Gaeltachta i gConamara agus tá an t-aonad lae dúnta. Right in the middle of the Gaeltacht we have a day centre that is closed. Kafka is easier to read at this stage. I always thought he was difficult. I had the privilege of doing German for a very short time and Kafka was impenetrable to me. Now I understand him perfectly, having dealt with the answers from the HSE and various other Government institutions. We had a very positive presentation in March, which indicated that the day centre was to open in April. Since then it has been unravelling. That is just one example. I mention it because such a centre would clearly take the pressure off hospitals. Then there is the Clifden District Hospital, which is lurching from week to week dependent on staff. Again, that would take the pressure off the general hospital.

As it happens, I have somebody near to me in hospital and I know how hard the staff work. It should be taken as a given that I praise the staff. They are absolutely wonderful. What I do not praise is the management on occasion and Government policy. Government policy has gotten us into this mess. In Galway city, we are waiting for an accident and emergency department. Back in 2014, the then Minister for Health, Deputy Varadkar, stated that a new building was the only solution in UHG. We have made progress since but there is no new accident and emergency department. Still, we are making progress. We are getting there. I have a library full of responses, as have other Deputies. We know now that the strategic assessment review has been completed. Changes are to be made to the public spending code and so on but we still have no accident and emergency department, despite the current one being considered not fit for purpose back in 2015. The elective hospital in Galway that was announced on 7 December 2022 was one of three sites. The one in Merlin Park is due to be open in seven years and operational in eight. I welcome that but that timespan is very long. The amendment tabled by the Social Democrats seeks to hasten that.

My frustration comes from a lot of reasons but back in 2019 the options appraisal identified Merlin Park as the site for a brand-new hospital. Nothing happened. We will now have an elective hospital but not a brand-new hospital. Since then there has been an update of the options appraisal and suddenly we are told that the congested site in Galway is the place. The Minister of State can see the level of frustration relating to all of this, as someone who is utterly committed to public medicine.

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