Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On the national service plan, I will break this down to two particular questions. One of them will relate to one of the issues the Minister dealt with on the radio earlier. I am talking about people, particularly families, who are under severe pressure. If Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital wants to discharge somebody, sometimes the staff are put under severe pressure to discharge into a nursing home. Because of the size of area covered by CHO8, a family from the Cooley Peninsula or Omeath could be under pressure to have their loved one placed somewhere in the midlands. There could be a solution for this. We have a very good discharge step-down unit in Louth County Hospital in Dundalk. It is a matter of whether we can put more resources into that because that is one of the biggest issues we have at the minute. Families are under pressure and a huge level of distress. It gives people time to organise home-care packages and we know the issues that exist there.

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