Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Carlow health services are important to us all. As the Minister of State is no doubt aware, injury units treat recent injuries that are not life threatening and are unlikely to need admission to hospitals. Such units can help with many of the injuries people go to emergency departments with. For example, with broken bones, dislocation and minor burns, patients can get treatments, X-rays and plaster casts. That is important. The HSE has advised that approximately 130,000 patients attend 12 local injury units in the country each year. They are designed to provide the same level of care as would be available in emergency departments, but more locally and with a shorter waiting time.

A HSE review of the injury units and medical assessment units looked in detail at the activity, capacity, staffing and operations of existing units across the model of what is called two hospitals, as well as areas having the most potential need for additional injury units. This is why I am glad we have someone to take this tonight, and I thank the Minister of State for taking this. There is an implementation plan for the recommendation from the review, which is now being developed. I am pleading that Carlow would be part of this. Carlow has grown by 9%, and is one of the fastest growing counties in the country. Carlow has a population of 62,000. The CSO figures show the population of Carlow town at 27,351. Kilkenny city is a little smaller at 27,184. The Carlow town population figures include Graiguecullen, which the Minister of State knows is just bordering Carlow. In the census, 1,262 people reported bad or very bad health in the county. That was up from 936 people in 2016. Carlow needs its own injury clinic, and I would like this to be supported and for Carlow to have this; we really need to expand in Carlow.

I want to talk about the X-ray unit. We have a fabulous building in Carlow called St. Dympna's. It was a hospital many years ago. We now have the X-ray department there, but it only operates on a part-time basis. This old hospital is a beautiful building, but they have other health services in it. Part of it is an X-ray unit, but it only opens part time; it is not open full time. At the moment it is closed for refurbishment. People from Carlow have to go to Kilkenny for an X-ray. One of the biggest challenges with people accessing healthcare in Carlow is in ambulance response times. The 2014 HIQA report into pre-hospital emergency care highlighted the dynamic development process as a measure to improve response time from the NAS performance generally. This happened, and it is a concern. We have fabulous ambulance paramedics in Carlow. They do an excellent job. However, this dynamic model of ambulance development allows the service to prioritise resource allocations to higher calls that require immediate emergency response. It also allows the categories of non-serious or non-life-threatening calls. This provides a resource appropriate to the patient's clinical need. I am sure the Minister of State is aware of this. The ambulance base in Carlow town supports five emergency ambulances on Monday and four during the remainder of the week. At the moment, a project is commencing to provide a new ambulance base in Carlow town, which was included in the 2023 capital plan and is currently at the appraisal stage.

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