Mary Moran (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I rise to call on the Minister for Health to come into the House to debate two current issues. Once again, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda is in the news. I was absolutely shocked to hear Mr. Tony Fitzpatrick of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, on radio this morning referring to the fact that well over 60 people were lying on trolleys there. This simply cannot be allowed to continue. Some of those people have been waiting four or five days to be seen and admitted. Last night there were up to 40 patients on trolleys in the accident and emergency department, ten on trolleys in already-full wards and 13 in the medical assessment unit, MAU. Ironically, the MAU was set up two years ago to help to alleviate this very problem. I was astonished to hear that many of the patients were elderly, some of them over 75. Mr. Fitzpatrick confirmed that if beds were provided, such patients would take up two full wards. It is vital that the Minister come to the House to discuss this.

The second issue is the audit that was carried out over two years on the number of undetected breech births in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. The biggest disappointment in this regard is the fact that the audit was patient-led. It was only when the patients complained that something was actually done. Unfortunately, there were 221 breech births at the hospital and one baby lost its life. A further source of disappointment is the fact that of the 21 late-diagnosis breech births, 13 were in the clinical-led unit, while eight were in the midwifery-led unit. These figures are disproportionate in the context of what is acceptable by European standards. I ask that the Minister for Health would come to the House to discuss these issues.