Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the intervention by the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, yesterday regarding the accident and emergency department in Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan. He ordered the HSE to back down over plans to shut that accident and emergency department. The Meath Chroniclecaptured the situation well this morning when it referred to the Minister halting plans to shut the accident and emergency department. I welcome the Minister ordering the management and clinicians to engage now with the community through its elected representatives, something they probably wanted to bypass.

There are gaping holes in these proposals, no more so than the fact that the North-East Doctor on Call, NEDOC, had to issue a public statement this week, and this was again covered by the Meath Chroniclethis morning, pointing out that the HSE proposals to change the accident and emergency department to a GP referral-led medical assessment unit will not work because the doctor-on-call system in the county is already beyond breaking point. One arm of the HSE had to point out to another arm of the organisation that, in 2019, a normal year before the impact of Covid-19, 33,500 patients were dealt with by that system. This year, and we are still only in October and have two months to go yet before its end, 34,000 patients have already been dealt with.

The figures speak for themselves in this regard. The basis of the HSE's plans to ram this change through using the mantra that services in the accident and emergency department in Navan hospital are unsafe has now been contradicted by another arm of the same organisation, which has stated these plans would be unsafe because the required GP capacity does not exist in the county to deal with a medical assessment unit. It would be a damn sight better if the HSE addressed the existing deficiencies in the system before trying to reconfigure it. I look forward to the HSE listening to the community and dealing with public representatives. I pay tribute to and thank the Minister for halting those plans.