Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State's response is quite extraordinary. He acknowledged that an application for funding amounting to €1.8 million was received to re-open the 19 beds. The provision would take some of the pressures off the nurses and doctors who must work in impossible conditions every single day they work in the emergency ward. He has acknowledged the application has been received but the scheme will not be funded. He also mentioned that an evidence-based health system capacity review is under way.What more evidence does the Department of Health need? The numbers have doubled since 2016.

When the Fine Gael Party entered office in 2011, there were hundreds of people on trolleys in hospitals in County Donegal. Most of those on trolleys at the time were elderly people who had worked and paid taxes all their lives and who expected to be treated with dignity when they got older. Now, the numbers on trolleys in hospitals in County Donegal runs to thousands. In 2017, almost 5,000 citizens ended up on trolleys in Letterkenny University Hospital. How can this evidence not be more clear in terms of the need to invest in more beds in that hospital? It is an absolute sin that a ward of 19 beds is lying empty when it could be put into service and we could solve this current crisis at the hospital. The Government refuses to invest €1.8 million in that hospital. The Minister of State's response is unacceptable. I appreciate that he is taking guidance from hospital management in Letterkenny, but it is an insult to the intelligence of the people of County Donegal to talk about 5,000 people on trolleys, some of whom were processed more quickly in Donegal than in other hospitals. The Minister of State knows that is not an acceptable response. I consider him to be a decent human being. The response he delivered is indecent and intolerable. I appeal to the Minister of State to deal immediately with this matter so that the funding sought to reopen the short-stay ward and bring the 19 beds into operation will be forthcoming. That will take the pressure off the heroic nurses and doctors who are dealing with this crisis. Then we should address the wider issue of Letterkenny hospital later this year.