Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Tá mé buíoch gur roghnaíodh an t-ábhar seo, a bhaineann le seirbhísí máithreachais in Ospidéal na hOllscoile, Leitir Ceanainn. I am appalled to say that this is not the first time I have raised this issue in this House. I refer to the fact that we have a maternity theatre suite in Letterkenny University Hospital that has never been commissioned. Indeed, there was widespread public anger when Senator Pádraig MacLochlainn and I revealed to the people of Donegal that the bespoke facility constructed in 2000 as part of the redevelopment of the hospital's renal dialysis block has never been used. Incredibly, when we pressed the management of Letterkenny University Hospital to explain the rationale behind this at a meeting, we were told that it was a resource issue. The necessary staffing was never put in place, and other resources were never provided, so therefore the theatre was never commissioned.

It is almost two decades since this facility was built. Before I spoke, I thought about the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, who has to make a decision on this matter. He was 14 years of age when former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern announced the new theatre in Letterkenny University Hospital. He was probably entering secondary school. Today, he is the Minister for Health, and over that whole period not one mother has had the benefit of the use of that theatre, on which the taxpayers of Donegal and elsewhere spent a large amount of money to create. Why is this happening and when will it be put right? It is my view that the problem is down to sheer incompetence on the part of successive governments. At worst, it amounts to neglect of a part of the country which has been neglected time and time again by successive governments. That is shameful, and a dereliction of the duties of those governments towards the people of Donegal. In this instance, it is particularly a dereliction of their duties towards the women of Donegal.

It is a deplorable situation, but to make matters worse it comes at a time when the hospital continues to experience record-breaking levels of overcrowding. Letterkenny University Hospital has been in emergency status since before the start of this year. It has lengthening patient waiting lists. The hospital has four operational inpatient operating theatres at the moment, yet only three of them can be used all the time. The reason is that the fourth theatre is now used as the maternity theatre because the other maternity theatre, built 18 years ago, was never commissioned. This means the hospital is down to three full-time operating theatres. As a result of this, consultants tell us that they cannot get operating theatre time because one of the theatres is now used for emergency caesarean sections and so on. That means that of the five theatres we have in Donegal, only three are used on a full-time basis. That is not an effective use of resources, and it has been the case for the past 18 years.

Ba mhaith liom ceist a chur ar an Rialtas inniu. Cad é atá ag dul a tharlú i dtaobh an ospidéal seo? An bhfeicfimid an seomra seo ar feadh 18 bliain eile, nó an bhfuil Feidhmeannacht na Seirbhíse Sláinte agus an Rialtas chun pacáiste airgid a chur ar fáil sa dóigh is go dtig linn é seo a chur i gceart? It is unbelievable to think that, while lists grow in Donegal and demand for operations and procedures are at an all time high, the hospital has a purpose-built maternity theatre on site that has been lying idle since 2000. It takes up half of the entire floor it is situated on. To make things worse, a mother who is giving birth and who develops complications in the maternity suite, who should go next door to theatre for an emergency caesarean section, now has to be wheeled out of the maternity unit, through the halls, into a lift and taken to a different floor where the theatre she can be operated on is located.

This is a campaign we are very committed to and, on behalf of the women of Donegal and the children yet to be born there, we are asking the Minister of State for action.

Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Gabhaim mo bhuíochas leis an Teachta Doherty as ucht an ábhair thábhachtach seo a ardú. The Government is strongly committed to developing and improving services at Letterkenny University Hospital, as is evidenced by the significant level of investment in capital projects in recent years. These developments include a new state-of-the-art blood science laboratory in 2015, a new medical academy and a clinical skills laboratory, both of which opened in 2016. The Deputy will also be aware of the significant investment in the hospital following the flood in 2013. I should also note that further capital investment in the hospital is planned.

I am advised that the obstetric theatre to which the Deputy refers was built in 2000 as part of a four-storey building encompassing day surgery, renal dialysis, medical on-call rooms, a maternity ward and maternity delivery rooms. I have also been advised that the delivery suite was opened in 2007 and has been operational since then, while, as noted by the Deputy, the maternity theatre has never been opened fully and is not currently in use. My understanding is that all emergency caesarean sections are performed in the hospital’s emergency theatre, while elective sections are carried out in the general theatres along with other surgical specialties.

As the House will be aware, in recent years this Government has had a particular focus on the development and improvement of our maternity services. Since January 2016, Ireland’s first national maternity strategy has been published, as well as the HSE's national standards for bereavement care following pregnancy loss and perinatal death and the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, national standards for safer better maternity services. Such initiatives represent essential building blocks to provide a consistently safe and high quality maternity service.

In January 2017, the national women and infants health programme was established in the HSE to lead the management, organisation and delivery of maternity, gynaecology and neonatal services, strengthening such services by bringing together work that is currently undertaken across primary, community and acute care. Last October, the programme published a detailed implementation plan for the phased implementation of the strategy. In that regard, additional development funding of €4.55 million will be provided to the programme in 2018 to implement the strategy and improve waiting times for gynaecology services.

Maternity networks are currently being rolled out across hospitals groups. In that context, and in view of the issue raised by the Deputy on the disused maternity theatre at Letterkenny University Hospital, I will ask the national women and infants health programme to engage further with the Saolta University Health Care Group in order to identify its resource requirements for maternity services in the context of the implementation of the national maternity strategy.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the Minister of State's commitment that he will ask the national women and infants health programme to engage with Saolta. We have met Saolta and the management of Letterkenny University Hospital. We have raised the matter with the Minister. We want to escalate this issue because we want delivery on it. Everyone will agree that it does not make sense to spend hundreds of thousands of euro constructing a purpose-built maternity theatre adjacent to the maternity suite and not use it. We can go back to the past about resource allocations and all the rest but we need to make sure we do the right thing.

This issue does not just relate to maternity services. While the Minister of State will ask the national women and infants health programme to engage with Saolta in terms of maternity requirement, he should remember that for every day this theatre is not commissioned he is denying the people of Donegal another theatre because the fourth theatre is out of use. It has to be retained at all times for emergency caesarean sections. It cannot be used for inpatient procedures, therefore, it has a knock-on effect in the hospital at large. I emphasise that this is not just about doing the best for the women and the children of Donegal, it is also a way of alleviating the pressure in terms of waiting lists. We have hospital overcrowding yet there is a large space at Letterkenny University Hospital that has been lying empty for the past 18 years.

I am convinced that the Minister of State understands this issue. I hope he does, and I hope this will add to the urgency in respect of it. There is a solution. We do not have to pay a fortune to build this theatre. It is already built. The equipment is in place but we need the staff now to support it. By doing what I propose, we will relieve pressure in other parts of the hospital, which is what we are supposed to be all about.

Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Go raibh maith agat arís, a Theachta. The Deputy makes a sensible, practical and reasonable argument on all fronts. I believe it is accepted across the House that that is the future. While we are grappling with so many issues in the health service, here is a solution. The role of Deputy Pearse Doherty and others in the House is to refocus, and that is what is missing here. We must refocus the energies and the efforts to utilise this space and, as the Deputy said, it is not just for the women, the children and the fathers of these children into the future. It is also for the well-being and health of the general population of Donegal - nothing to do with maternity services - because it will increase the throughput in the rest of Letterkenny General Hospital and allow many more procedures to be done and eliminate the waiting lists on which we spend so much time beating ourselves up over politically in this House in terms of trying to get to the bottom of them. It is eminently sensible. It is something that can be achieved. I thank the Deputy for raising it in the House as it affords us, as politicians, an opportunity to get our officials to go back to the HSE and work with the Saolta group to try to refocus efforts to get this commissioned and utilised today or sooner rather than later.