Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I thank the Deputy. The Government is committed to the ongoing development of Sligo and our other regional hospitals. As he said, I am aware that there were issues with water leaks at the hospital and that in particular on 18 April, the leak led to the temporary closure of the orthopaedic theatre for eight days to allow for cleaning and air sampling to be undertaken, and I am told that additional monitoring is ongoing. While the theatre was closed, as the Deputy will be aware, a number of orthopaedic surgeries were unfortunately postponed. The HSE is working to reschedule those surgeries for those patients as quickly as possible.

As the Deputy will also be aware, two weeks ago I was there on site. I met with some of the surgeons. I heard directly from them on their perspective, not just on the theatre but as he said, on the surgical block and surgical issues more generally related to the north west. I thank them for their engagement. I was told at that point that there would be a meeting on 13 May, which is today, between surgeons, HSE estates and HSE management. I received an update this evening on that meeting. The purpose of that meeting was that the clinicians and HSE management would meet together to review the situation and plan the next steps and hopefully enable the full restoration of full orthopaedic surgeries, including elective surgeries. My information this evening from Mr. Tony Canavan is that, as I said on the day of the news report that I expected this to be fixed, HSE estates has outlined the immediate repairs to be done to the roof but more crucially, as the Deputy is more than aware, the plan to replace the roof entirely this year. It is my expectation that the roof will be repaired entirely this year, hopefully by somebody other than the people who did the initial leak repairs because they were clearly ineffective. That is my expectation of HSE estates.

The surgeons will reflect on the situation and a follow-up meeting is planned with them next week, after which there will be a series of follow-up meetings to monitor progress throughout the year. I hope that will resolve the issues in respect of the roof. I will address the other issues in my next contribution.

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