Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Hospital overcrowding has become an endemic part of our health service, not least at Letterkenny University Hospital. This is despite the hard work of the staff there, who at all times are putting the interests of patients first. Last year, over 7,000 patients went without a bed at Letterkenny University Hospital, the worst year for overcrowding at the hospital on record. It should come as no surprise. At the beginning of this year, the chief executive of the Saolta University Health Care Group, which includes Letterkenny University Hospital, made it known that it had not received a single additional bed in the past three years. This difficult environment has continued right into this year. In the first weeks of this month, patients reportedly spent lengthy times at the emergency department of the hospital and, in the last week, we heard representatives of nurses and midwives claim that Letterkenny University Hospital needed an additional 60 members of staff to respond to patients’ needs.

Figures released this week to my party's health spokesperson show that more than 85,000 hospital appointments were cancelled in the first four months of the year across the State, and at Letterkenny University Hospital, more than 1,000 appointments were cancelled in the first four months of this year. When we talk about waiting times and cancelled appointments, we are talking about far more than the nuisance of patients being forced to wait. We are talking about delayed diagnosis and about the development of further complications that would not have happened had patients been treated when they needed to be; we are talking about life and death. The fact is that patients are dying in my county and in the north west as a result of all of this. It has to stop.

The situation at Letterkenny University Hospital is unacceptable. It is failing to meet the needs of the people of Donegal and, indeed, of the staff of that hospital. I and my colleague, Deputy Mac Lochlainn, have raised the issues of concern at Letterkenny University Hospital for years now. We have repeatedly raised the need for additional capacity and for more staffing, calls that have fallen on deaf ears within the Government. A multi-annual plan is needed to expand hospital capacity and to increase staff numbers and that plan must be put in place. While Sinn Féin in government would invest in health and services in Letterkenny University Hospital, action needs to be taken now. We cannot wait any longer. It is ridiculous what is happening and lives are being put at risk as a result.

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