Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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13. To ask the Minister for Health the number of persons who died while waiting to be seen in emergency departments in the State in each of the past ten years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1893/24]

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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On that previous issue, in the context of HSE-funded home care, there is a refusal to bring older people for walks. Where people have dementia, they are being allowed to leave the house unaccompanied because of this refusal to bring people for walks. This is an extremely dangerous decision by the HSE.

Turning to the issue of hospitals now, the crisis there really bubbled up over Christmas. There have been really worrying trends regarding how many people are suffering on hospital waiting lists, in accident and emergency departments, etc., due to the recruitment freeze. It is important that we start to analyse how many people are suffering as a result of this situation and how many people are losing their lives in accident and emergency departments now in this State.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Not for a moment am I going to downplay the real pressures in too many of our hospitals for too many of our patients in accident and emergency departments. However, it is really important that as an Oireachtas we acknowledge the progress our healthcare workers are making. I can tell the Deputy, and I know he will have seen this himself from talking to them, they are working so hard to bring down the number of patients on trolleys in every hospital. There has been a national response to this situation. Looking at the second half of last year, which is when the new approach was rolled out, we can see there has been a 22% reduction in the number of patients on trolleys. Regarding the most high-risk group of people, who are central to the Deputy's question, there has been a nearly 40% reduction on the figures for the previous year. We have all seen a very important reduction in the number of patients on trolleys through Christmas and the new year and, so far, in January of this year. I am not for a moment suggesting this issue is fixed but it is really important that we acknowledge that the work, the blood, sweat and tears our healthcare professionals are putting into this is working.

The Deputy should rest assured that we are going to continue. We are focusing, in particular, on the hospitals where the greatest delays are. Approximately seven hospitals account for approximately half the patients on trolleys.

More hospitals are now reporting no patients on trolleys and, more importantly, more hospitals are beginning to report that, at the 8 a.m. count, there were no people aged over 75 have been waiting for more than 24 hours. Those are two of the most important things that have to be achieved. To the Deputy's question, approximately 32,000 people die in Ireland every year. Approximately 13,500 of those deaths occur in hospitals. I will come back to the specific numbers regarding emergency departments in my next response.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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I 100% acknowledge the work that the staff and medical professionals within hospitals are involved in. My critique is of the lack of Government investment and the lack of reform in the HSE. The newspapers are full of this. Today'sIrish Examiner states, "A woman has told how she watched as her husband tried to resuscitate their 21-year-old daughter after she collapsed at home just hours after being discharged from University Hospital Limerick." RTÉ's website reports today that the HSE has "apologised to the mother of a boy over injuries he suffered after a battery was stuck in his throat for nine days before an X-ray was carried out". Another headline from RTÉ this week stated, "Woman died after surgery by two trainees". On Twitter, we see a disability advocate, Courtney Manning, had metal plates put into her leg that her body has rejected and that she needs removed. She is in constant pain and is vomiting due to morphine but the National Orthopaedic Hospital has said that she is no longer its patient. She has resorted to sending pictures of her body, which is rejecting these metal plates, to politicians.

We see from talking to family and friends, from our constituencies and communities and from newspapers, television and radio that there are serious problems with people suffering adverse incidents in hospitals and with people waiting for so long that they are not getting the necessary treatment. We need to get to the bottom of this to make sure this does not happen in our hospitals in future.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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There are two things I would like to say on this. I am fully in agreement with the Deputy on the cases in which people do not get the care they need. That can lead to catastrophic outcomes. A recent example is the report into the tragic death of Aoife Johnston in Limerick. Unfortunately, these things do happen. Sometimes they may be preventable and sometimes they may not but we have to do everything we can. I fully agree with the Deputy that there are too many incidences of people not getting the care they need as quickly as they need it, sometimes leading to catastrophic and heartbreaking outcomes.

I also want to provide a bit of balance. How many people arrived in our emergency departments last year? It was 1.5 million. What we almost never see on social media or reported by RTÉ is the people who went in, were triaged quickly, were seen, got great care, perhaps had their lives saved, got fantastic treatment and went home. We never hear about them. Some 1.5 million people attended but what we hear about, for reasons we all understand, is the unacceptable cases where people have not gotten the care they need. I fully agree that we need to do more to have those catastrophic events become something that never happens. I just want to say that 1.5 million people attended our emergency departments last year. A lot of excellent care was provided. We need to keep going with the reduction in the number of patients on trolleys because that is how we will get to a point at which these kinds of reports are a thing of the past.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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Tógfaidh mé cúpla soicind. There are serious problems and they are not arising independently of Government. Government is making decisions on funding and recruitment freezes. I know of a nurse who returned to Ireland two months ago but who was unable to get back into her old job because of the recruitment freeze here. Lives depend on the ability of doctors and nurses to have the necessary capacity and resources to deliver the health service properly. Those resources are not there and people are suffering as a result. Will the Government make sure that we have the necessary investment and reform of the HSE so that we can have a health service that does not let these people suffer so tragically?

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Let us talk about what is actually happening here. In the lifetime of this Government, more than 1,100 beds, approximately 1,000 consultants and 25,000 healthcare professionals have been added to our health service. We are by no means where we want to be as regards everyone getting the right care at the right time but it is absolutely and undeniably the case that this Government has invested in our healthcare service, has grown it and is reforming it at a level we would have to go back quite a long way to see. Of course, there is more to be done but waiting lists are falling and the number of patients on trolleys is falling. More than half of the population has access to free GP care. Women's health services have been revolutionised. Really important things are happening thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our healthcare workers backed up by investment from this Government.