Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Who cares that, in 2022, UHL was the most overcrowded hospital in the country? I care, but does the Government care? Since the Government entered power, waiting lists have increased significantly to 830,000 people. Ireland has fewer beds now than we had in 1980 even though we have a larger population. The policy of Sláintecare is to remove the private rights of consultants within the public system and pay them a salary only. This will not work in our hospitals because we do not have consultants who work weekends or after 5 p.m. Consultants have rejected this policy, as they are already being paid a premium for only working five days in a hospital.

When the Minister was in UHL, he spoke to staff there. They asked him what he was going to do to improve healthcare and he replied by asking them what they would do. They asked the Minister to consider having 24-hour emergency department consultants to get through the backlog instead of the consultants coming in the following morning or after the weekend, by which time there would be a backlog. He said he would consider this. They also asked him for better working conditions and pay for the hospital's nursing staff. These are the front-line staff who work tirelessly day and night looking after us, but he will not tackle the broken management system in the hospital. Morale is on the floor. When the Minister asked them, the staff told him what to do. Will he please examine the management system and the structures at UHL? Without a shadow of a doubt, the system is broken and needs to be fixed. Doing so would raise morale in the hospital and we would be able to retain experienced staff, who are leaving in their droves.

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