Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Health, Deputy Varadkar, was in this House just over a week ago talking about the HSE's service plan. He said he would not comment on the state of accident and emergency units in individual hospitals. However, the Minister has to deal with hospitals individually because there is a difference between them and a crisis in some.

The information I have is absolutely shocking. One man spent 96 hours on a trolley and then got a bill of €300 for a bed. I have also heard an account of a mother with a baby whose ankle was fractured in three places but had to sit for ten hours without pain relief. She said: "I don't want to talk about the three psychiatric patients who played with my baby, or the girl having a miscarriage sitting beside the man with a bleeding head, or the man beside me vomiting every 15 minutes into a plastic bag." Neither did she want to talk about the elderly patient who could not walk, who came in at 2.30 p.m. and was still there unassessed when she was leaving at 3.30 a.m. There were no pillows, and no water was given to patients on trolleys. She gave her spare bottle of water to an elderly woman. The woman said:

I don't want to talk about the lack of dignity to me or to all the other patients. With no consulting rooms everybody heard my baby's history. I unwillingly heard everybody else's history.

That woman's question to the Minister, which has gone straight to his office yet remains unanswered, was about his emergency plan. Galway University Hospital needs an emergency plan for its accident and emergency unit. This appalling personal suffering is occurring daily, with an average waiting time of ten hours. I await the Leader's response. I have contacted the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, personally about this matter, but have not yet received a response. While he makes a virtue of the fact that he will not comment on individual hospital cases, these appalling cases of human suffering will continue.