Seanad debates

Wednesday, 30 September 2015

Commencement Matters

Hospital Waiting Lists

10:30 am

Photo of David CullinaneDavid Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and thank him for taking this Commencement matter. Since I was elected to Seanad Éireann, I have tabled Commencement or Adjournment matters on waiting times at University Hospital Waterford, formerly known as Waterford Regional Hospital, at least twice each year. Unfortunately, for the past seven years, under this Government and its predecessor, services and capacity at the hospital have been reduced. It has lost surgical theatre space, beds, wards and front-line staff, as have all other hospitals. These cuts have an impact on patient care. On each occasion that I raise this matter, I point out that waiting times at the hospital have increased since I last raised the issue. The most recent figures show that more than 7,000 patients have been waiting for longer than 12 months to be seen by a consultant in Waterford University Hospital and the south east. Sinn Féin did not set the benchmark that patients should be seen within 12 months. It was set by the Government, yet many patients must wait longer than 12 months. Rather than deal with this issue and face up to the fact that its policy has failed, the Minister simply moved the goalposts by changing the benchmark to 18 months.

I will give the Minister of State a flavour of how bad things have become at University Hospital Waterford despite the best efforts of managers, front-line staff and other health service employees. A newly built delivery suite is still not open or operational for funding, capacity and staffing reasons. In addition, people in the south east were promised a palliative care unit by previous Ministers for Health as far back as the period in which the Progressive Democrats Party was in government. Despite a number of announcements, the unit has not yet been built and people in Waterford must engage in fund-raising to pay to have the unit developed. The south east is the only region in the State that does not have a palliative care unit. The Government has also failed to deliver the promised 24-7 cardiology service.

University Hospital Waterford is experiencing serious capacity issues. The Government should be ashamed of its approach to the health service, especially in light of a serious incident in Waterford last week when ambulances were diverted from taking patients to University Hospital Waterford to hospitals in Wexford and Kilkenny. Can the Minister of State honestly claim that it is acceptable in 2015, four years after his Government took office, that patients are being diverted from a regional hospital? Can he imagine circumstances in which patients would be diverted from any other regional hospital?

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