Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Labour Party for tabling this motion because it allows us to discuss this important issue. I will spend my time focusing on the more local impacts of Government healthcare policy. I will concentrate on the impacts on Sligo University Hospital, SUH. This is what matters to the people living there because it is their local hospital. What are we talking about? Last week, healthcare workers took time out to make the case for patients at SUH. Staff are carrying a major workload and this is partly due to the HSE's moratorium on employing staff. It is having an extremely serious impact on the experience of patients and on the staff delivering the service, who are burnt out at this stage.

It is not just now, though. Last December, workers left their posts at SUH to highlight the same concerns. If we do not listen to the healthcare workers in our hospitals, then we are not facing up to the reality of what is happening. They are telling us that the HSE's pay and numbers strategy will have a detrimental impact on services. SIPTU is also telling us that certain areas are being left behind in terms of adequate staffing. This is my main concern. We must have a safe staffing framework for all grades and areas in the health service. Just two years ago, 50 consultants from SUH wrote to the Taoiseach concerning conditions for staff and patients at SUH. They said the working conditions were unacceptable and unsafe and it was unsafe for patients too. One consultant said, "I have worked as a consultant for over 17 years and I have never seen the demand on our services so high nor the morale of our staff so low." One of the reasons for this is that in the wake of the 2008 economic crash, SUH lost 60 beds, which, proportionally, was far more than any other hospital in the country. A 40-bed unit is due to start construction soon, I hope, and that is great, but this will not even bring us back to the 2008 numbers.

It is not just the local consultants and staff saying this. What is the Irish Hospital Consultants Association, the national body, saying? Three years ago, the organisation said that meeting the healthcare needs of the 152,000 people in the west and north-west regions currently waiting to be assessed or treated by a consultant would only be possible by urgently filling vacant permanent hospital consultant posts. One year later, in 2022, the same organisation, a national organisation, said that failing to recruit consultant medical and surgical specialists in the north west would inevitably lead to patient harm and poor clinical outcomes. The truth of the matter is that because there is no model 4 hospital north of a line from Dublin to Galway there are great difficulties in recruiting consultants, no matter how much money is poured into it. This is the reality of the situation. The other parts of the country have their model 4 hospitals and their specialties, but there is nothing north of this line from Dublin to Galway in respect of model 4 hospitals. This is contributing to the problem.

I have discussed this matter with the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly. He said that he sometimes disagrees with my figures on patients in hospitals waiting for beds from Trolley Watch. I will just use two figures. In 2014, ten years ago, 2,017 people were waiting on beds in the hospital in Sligo. Last year, 8,193 people were waiting. The numbers have almost quadrupled. If this fact does not tell us that there is a severe emergency where SUH is concerned and if the Government does not listen to the national body representing consultants, then I do not know what is going to happen. The Government must listen because the people in the north west matter as much as the people represented by the Minister of State and every other Deputy in this House.

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