Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I am on record as saying I acknowledge that work is being done at the hospital, with a 96-bed unit being built as we sit here. Nevertheless, that will deliver only 48 additional beds, as the HSE itself has stated. Single-occupancy beds would be the better way, not least because our hospital has suffered over the years from infections and cross-contamination, so that would be useful. Two other 96-bed projects are in the ether but we do not know their status. I do not believe the Government has at its heart the ability, willingness or will to solve the problem at University Hospital Limerick. The overcrowding has been going on for years. The UL report stated the hospital needed 302 additional beds, not 96 or 48, by 2030.

The slow delivery we are seeing means we are condemning the people of Limerick and the wider mid-west to suffer overcrowding in the hospital for years to come, with no plan whatsoever to get us out of the situation we are in. There is a crisis in home care and people in hospital have been occupying beds for days while simply waiting for an MRI scan. These issues can be resolved. We all know about them, and families, friends and nurses will have told us about them. Consultants have rung my office in despair, asking me whether I can somehow speed up an MRI scan because they cannot seem to get it done themselves. All that nonsense is going on while we wait for the units to be built. There are three 96-bed units and I assume all of them will equate to 48 beds fewer in the system. As I said, that is good but it will not deal with the capacity. The number one issue relates to the catastrophic mistake made to close the emergency departments without delivering a centre of excellence in our local hospital, and we are all suffering the consequences of that in Limerick and throughout the wider mid-west.

I ask the Minister for Health, who might listen to the debate or read the Official Report, and to whom I will write about this, to intervene personally and speed up the process. This cannot keep going on the way it is.

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