Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth. I thank the Cathaoirleach's office for choosing my Commencement matter. I am disappointed and it is not good enough that neither the Minister for Health nor one of his three Ministers of State at the Department of Health are here to debate this issue. However, I understand that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, is before an Oireachtas committee because she phoned me yesterday.

My Commencement matter concerns the provision of winter beds and permanent beds for Galway. Yesterday, at the meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health we discussed the winter plan with Mr. Paul Reid, chief executive officer, and his senior officials in the HSE. I pointed out that we need a plan for each hospital so in this case University Hospital Galway or at least for the Saolta University Hospital Care Group. The national plan contains a promise or commitment to provide 205 acute beds over the period of this winter, also community beds, extra resources for GPs and the like. I asked a question based on the fact that the one in eight people who have been on trolleys over the last eight weeks were on trolleys in University Hospital Galway. I asked how many of the 205 acute beds that are proposed to be provided as part of the winter plan will be located in Galway and the answer I was given was zero. I find it unbelievable that no beds will be given to the hospital that has had the highest rate of people on trolleys over the last eight weeks. How does that make sense to anybody? The reason given was that there is no capacity to put beds in place, no wards have been closed and there is no space without major construction. They said they are considering community beds and private care. Obviously there is no capacity in other hospitals. Certainly I would not advocate that patients from Galway would be transferred elsewhere for care. They want and deserve to be looked after within their home area and within University Hospital Galway. The hospital is at breaking point and there is no capacity within the hospital or within Merlin Park.

The resourcing of GPs is an important area and I have previously raised the issue of Westdoc, which is an out-of-hours service in my region. Westdoc does not cover some parts of County Galway and it does not cover my own area of Moycullen, Rosscahill and Oughterard, which is close to Galway city. If one has an out-of-hours patient that cannot avail of Westdoc then where must he or she go? Such people must go to the emergency department. Yesterday at the committee meeting, Ms Anne O'Connor of the HSE said that the HSE would look at resourcing Westdoc to provide extra provision as part of the winter plan because there are resources available. I welcome that and urge the HSE to consider the matter.

In the meantime, the winter plan does not provide acute beds to Galway and we do not know what will happen long term. We have proposals from an elective hospital, which is likely to be Merlin Park, and an announcement is due to be made.There were commitments and promises regarding acute beds, but it now seems that none will be provided or the matter is still under discussion.

That is the situation in Galway. We have the most people on trolleys over an eight-week period and there are no short-term or medium-term plans to provide acute beds. There may be long-term plans to provide them depending on how long-term "long-term" is. That is the situation in the largest city in the west and the centre of excellence for hospital care in the west. It is a sorry state of affairs. There are many plans and a great deal of talk, yet the situation on the ground is dire. Nurses in the emergency department are leaving and there is no commitment from the HSE to provide acute beds for this winter.