David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Like the housing crisis, we debate the trolley crisis time and again in this Chamber. We want to get to a point where we deal with it comprehensively but it seems to be getting worse. As the Minister said, it is now a year-round problem. The figures for the waiting times for those on hospital trolleys, which are presented to us every day of every week by the INMO, are exceptionally high. The waiting times are far too high. We need to do a lot of things. The seven-day rostering will absolutely help but there is also a need to invest in hospital capacity. We need more hospital beds, more diagnostics, more surgical theatre capacity and more radiography capacity. All of those capacity deficits exist in some hospitals.

We also need to mandate best practice. If things are being done right in some hospitals, that needs to be shared and mandated across all hospitals. It is crucial to resource the community space. Enhanced community care from community intervention teams and all of that, which provides alternative care pathways, is also crucial. There is real frustration that despite all of the money was are spending in the health service, the numbers of patients on trolleys is not going down but up. People cannot for the life of them figure out that why the situation is getting worse when we are spending more money. Why is that the case?

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