Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the benevolence of my colleague. I acknowledge the Minister's wide-ranging speech, one of the key features of which was the fact that, despite the increase in population, no new acute hospital has been built.One of the features of the Minister's speech was his point about the increase in population but that no new acute hospital has been built. I wish to make two brief points in that regard. First, the national maternity hospital in Dublin and the national children's hospital are both very welcome projects, but given that they are very large projects there is a danger that the rest of the country may lag. That is why it is so critical that when the capital plan is reviewed that factor is taken into account.

More specifically, I wish to deal with my area of Limerick. The Minister referred to progress on the planned maternity hospital. It is hugely important that we relocate to the site of the University Hospital Limerick. The Minister will examine that in the context of the capital plan. More specifically on acute services, as I am sure he is well aware, we should focus on acute services when there is not a crisis. I have heard people say the crisis is over. Now is the time to talk about it because it is cyclical and it will always come around again. We need to resolve the issue now. I accept we need to discuss the crisis when it happens but now is the more critical time. When the reconfiguration was taking place in University Hospital Limerick in 2009 part of it involved the building of 138 co-located beds on the hospital site. The accident and emergency units in Ennis, Nenagh and St. John’s hospitals were closed but the project never went ahead. In the HSE capital plan there is an application for 96 acute beds to be built on the University Hospital Limerick site. Following discussions with the Minister, Tony O'Brien, and more particularly Liam Woods, the national director of acute services in the HSE, I am pleased that we have got the go-ahead for the design element of the project to get under way. I welcome that. When the mid-term capital review takes place it is hugely important that this €25 million project is funded. We have a major capacity issue in Limerick University Hospital. We are short of beds. We closed three accident and emergency units with the loss of 18 bays. At the time 50 beds were closed in Ennis, Nenagh and St. John’s hospitals. A new state-of-the art accident and emergency unit is due to open this year. We hope it will be opened in May. I very much hope management will stick to the target and that the unit will open on time.

However, that is only one side of the equation. The other side of the equation - the missing piece of the jigsaw - is the 96 acute bed unit to be built alongside it over the dialysis unit with four floors of 26 beds each. I welcome that the design phase is now under way. However, when the HSE mid-term capital review takes place that project, worth €25 million for a 96 acute bed unit, must be funded. The Minister will have our full backing when the mid-term capital review takes place. Additional funding of capital projects must be available for the health sector. We have an increasing population. University Hospital Limerick has now the highest throughput of any accident and emergency unit nationally with more than 66,000 patients yet we have half the number of beds of University Hospital Cork.

In addition to more primary care and GP contracts we have a fundamental lack of beds at University Hospital Limerick for the mid-west region and Limerick. There is a provision in the HSE's capital plan for 96 acute beds. It is very welcome that the design phase is now under way but we want to see it go ahead. The Minister will have our full support for him to advocate for €25 million in funding to be provided in this year's mid-term review of the HSE’s capital plan in order that the people of Limerick and the mid-west can get the level of service to which they are entitled – an equal service to other areas in the country, which due to lack of beds is not the case at present.