David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes that:

— the average waiting time for emergency department admission so far this year stands at 11.5 hours, which is an hour longer than for the same period in 2019;

— the trolley scandal which Fine Gael pledged to end is now worse than ever and has become a year-round threat to patient safety, with an average of more than 550 patients on trolleys every day so far this month, compared to 350 in May 2011;

— there were 24,000 hospital appointments and procedures cancelled in April 2023, which is an increase of 70 per cent on April 2022 and greater than the number of cancellations in January 2023;

— hospital waiting lists now stand at 888,000 patients, with more than 500,000 people waiting longer than the Sláintecare targets agreed by the Oireachtas, and with more than 225,000 people waiting for a diagnostic scan;

— full capacity protocols have been active across most major hospital sites for significant periods of the year to date, including 118 of the first 120 days in the year at University Hospital Limerick; and

— primary care services, in particular out-of-hours general practice services, are buckling under the strain of demand and historic neglect and underinvestment under successive Ministers for Health;

further notes that:

— the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has published estimates which reckon that the Health Service Executive is faced with a deficit of 1,000 acute inpatient hospital beds, and that there is a requirement for 330 additional beds every year in addition to this deficit;

— the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD, has pledged to deliver a multi-annual bed plan for 1,500 hospital beds, which will fall short of the requirements as set out by the ESRI;

— the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD, has failed to legislate for mandatory safe staffing levels in hospitals; and

— the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris TD, and the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD, have failed to outline a multi-annual health workforce plan to develop, train, and retain the requisite number of health and social care professionals to safely staff the health service and deliver universal healthcare; and

calls on the Government to:

— legislate for mandatory safe staffing levels in hospitals;

— publish and deliver on a multi-annual health service capacity plan, which matches the requirements as set out by the ESRI, and provides a 5 and 10-year health service capacity roadmap; and

— publish and deliver on a multi-annual health and social care strategic workforce plan, which develops, trains, and retains the doctors, nurses, and allied health and social care professionals we need to safely staff the health service and deliver universal healthcare.

A 78-year-old woman who suffers from cardiac issues had to wait more than 24 hours on a chair at University Hospital Waterford last week. The woman, who was subsequently diagnosed with heart failure, arrived at University Hospital Waterford at 3 p.m. but still had no bed or trolley at 3 p.m. the next day. She travelled from Dungarvan with her daughter who told Damien Tiernan on "Déise Today" on Waterford Local Radio, WLR FM, her mother's story: Mam went through triage very quickly, but then we sat and sat. Mam sent me home at 11 o'clock as I had to go home and do the jobs at home, so she told me that she would ring me when she was ready... At 2 o'clock in the morning, she rang me and she said "They told me I am staying in". [I asked her if she] had a bed as of yet, to which she responded no - though she was hopeful that it wouldn't be long before that came about. I said I would give her a ring in the morning, and I went to bed. I got up at 6am and I was working at 8am, so I said I would go down first with a bag for Mam. When I got in the door at 7am, I looked through and there she was, still sitting in the [same] chair. A 78-year-old woman, who was later diagnosed with heart failure, was left for 24 hours, not on a trolley but on a chair in a hospital. The Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, who has not come to the Chamber for whatever reason, tabled a very lengthy amendment to our motion but he left out a number of very important facts. Nowhere in the Minister's amendment does he agree or state that 85,000 patients had their procedures cancelled for the first quarter of this year. Nowhere does he talk about the thousands of patients who are languishing on hospital trolleys every day and the record numbers being broken every week and every month which are averaging at about 600 or 700 per day. Nowhere does he talk about the 50,000 bed days that were lost due to delayed discharges. Nowhere does he talk about the average wait time in emergency departments now exceeding 11 hours, and for children over 13 hours, and the same for patients over the age of 75. Nowhere does he talk about the 24,000 patients for the first quarter of this year who left emergency departments without being seen.

The facts are that the Minister for Health does not have a plan. He certainly does not have the confidence to come into the Chamber because I think this is the second Private Members' motion on health in recent times he has not been here. One would have to ask what his priorities are. I will tell the Minister for Health and will give him advice which I had done time and again on what I believe he needs to do.

There are a number of key issues on which we are asking the Minister to deliver. The first is to increase hospital capacity. This Minister loves to talk about stuff he is doing and talk up some of his successes. We see this in the very lengthy amendment tabled to this motion that does not acknowledge any of the hardships or any of the crises in emergency departments, hospital cancellations, what those of the front line are going through, or what patients are going through.

We need more beds, more surgical theatre capacity, and more diagnostic capacity. Yet, there is no pace or urgency on delivery from this Minister for Health. There are lots of promises. We are always waiting but there is no delivery. We also need more investment in community and primary care. One of the reasons we have a crisis in emergency departments is that we do not have proper care being given to people in the community. We know we need more out of hours GP care, greater use of community pharmacy, more step-down and recovery beds, and more care options including rehab in the community.

We need a comprehensive workforce plan for health. We need to ratchet up training places to ensure we have a greater pool of graduates coming through because we simply cannot deliver on what we need to deliver unless we have more qualified health graduates coming through. To underpin all of that, we need a multi-annual plan that gets serious about integrating all elements of healthcare. We have primary care and community care operating in silos from what is happening in our acute hospitals and that is one of the big failures. This Minister needs to have the courage of his convictions and come into the Chamber when there are debates on health. More importantly, he needs to come in with a plan and to deliver because patients and those on the front line are suffering.

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