Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister will be familiar with the situation in Letterkenny University Hospital. I can tell him that last year almost 5,000 patients in Donegal found themselves on trolleys at Letterkenny hospital. That is double the number of 2016. It is the highest number since INMO records began. There is a real crisis at the hospital.

There are so many stories every day but one story that sticks in my mind is that a 92 year old man gravely ill with pneumonia spent 23 hours waiting to get through into the hospital. There are so many other stories but that one really stood out. It is appalling. When we talk about 5,000, it is not just a number. That is 5,000 human beings who have not got what they needed from the health service. They were not given their dignity. That was their experience.I say all of that because I am outraged to have learned recently that the €1.8 million applied for by the management of Letterkenny hospital last summer under the winter initiative was turned down. It was money needed to reopen the short stay ward, which is a 19-bed ward lying empty in Letterkenny hospital at a time of crisis. A full capacity protocol has been in place for almost a month in that hospital. That is the scale of the crisis. The staff, doctors and nurses work in impossible conditions and that is why that money was desperately needed. Will the Minister comment on that today and clarify why that money was turned down? Why is this 19-bed short stay ward lying empty at a time when it is critically important to have those beds available? It would avoid situations like that of the man who was waiting 23 hours and would take the pressure off the nurses and doctors who are performing a heroic service in very difficult circumstances.