Grace O'Sullivan (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Minister swanned in here this morning to share with us something we may not have heard this winter, that is, that the number of patients on trolleys over the winter is down. In the month of December, the number on trolleys was down by 447. The Minister spoke about 170 additional beds being open this winter. He does not mention University Hospital Waterford. He says there will be beds open there but what criteria were used for the hospitals that were allocated beds? I ask that because last week I spoke on the Order of Business about the last days of Michael Gallagher, a citizen of Waterford city, who passed away in December at University Hospital Waterford. Mr. Gallagher’s children, Catriona and William, wrote an elegant, thoughtful and open letter to the Minister, which was informed by their abysmal experience in the last days of their father's life in University Hospital Waterford. Both Catriona and William have medical backgrounds; Catriona is a nurse in London and William is a professor of cancer care in UCD.

I recently met with Professor William Gallagher to discuss the situation his father faced and the issues facing University Hospital Waterford, and all hospitals in Ireland. We talked about the true nature of the trolley crisis and that while we know the total number of people on trolleys at any one time, we do not know the average or total duration that each patient spends there. We discussed getting to the bottom of the existing Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, rules regarding maximum stays on trolleys and how the existing rules for people aged over 75 years are enforced. To solve the crisis in our health service and to prevent its annual recurrence, we have to know exactly what it is we are up against.

I want to focus as much on solutions. No more speeches are needed about how tragic the crisis is; we all now know this well enough. We do not need and must not repeat the endless cycle of decrying these endless crises every winter only for them to return the next year. The problem in University Hospital Waterford is that it is not a winter crisis, but a continual one. Even in the summer it is a big crisis in Waterford. I hear that from consultants. What is needed is solid solutions and that means changes, some of which will undoubtedly be difficult and uncomfortable. Over the past month we heard from health professionals working on the front line about what they think needs to change, including the way we handle diagnoses, the way referrals through accident and emergency are handled and the absence of more solid primary care paths in our non-hospital health system. It means reorganisation from ground level of how hospital admissions operate and it also means providing adequate resources for the expansion and reorganisation of our health system as laid out in the Sláintecare report. Getting new beds into operation in our hospitals involves not just money, but also training, employing and keeping medical staff, as the Minister referred to. This is a major challenge.

This week, I heard the personal story of a Waterford doctor, who was trained by the Irish university system and is now set to buy a house in Australia, where he can be assured of better conditions as a junior doctor and enjoy a much clearer career progression. To guarantee such conditions for our junior medical staff, we will have to examine the balance between the private and public work of our hospital consultants and the pay and conditions of their junior staff. One thing I have seen with dismay over the past month or two is resignation that this is just the way health care is and always will be in Ireland. We cannot accept it. We can and must do better, which means listening to patients and our regions, health care professionals and front-line staff and making it possible for them to deliver excellent health care services for all our people.

The Minister mentioned a parochial attitude but if it was a member of his family who had died recently, he would be talking about his town and his hospital. That is why I am talking about University Hospital Waterford.