Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House to discuss this important issue. I know he understands the complexities involved and that he has been engaged with it for some time. Specifically, I wish to talk about the mid-west and the hospital there. In the past two days 87 medics signed an open letter. They gave credit to the Minister and the Taoiseach for their open engagement with them. They have, though, asked for a couple of things. They have highlighted that the new accident and emergency unit, opened in 2017, is capable of dealing with 190 patients a day, but that it is now dealing with something like 240 visits daily. There is a problem there. These medics also referred to the planned growth of beds that should have reached 640 as a result of reconfiguration but that it has not reached anything like that number. There are 90 beds and 200 more on the way, but I appeal to the Minister to do whatever he can at government level, even if it is necessary to set aside planning rules and laws just to get these facilities built, because this is an emergency and this work needs to happen.

Bed building does not just need to happen in Limerick hospital. It can also happen in Ennis hospital, which has 50 good beds and a proper word block. It could manage 50 more beds. The result of what has happened in recent days in Limerick hospital and the focus of all the medical attention being on that facility means day surgery has been cancelled for the past five weeks in Ennis hospital. This means 150 patients are now being delayed due to the work practices that have had to change to reduce the queues in the accident and emergency unit in Limerick hospital. There will be long-term fallout from this situation.

The situation in the mid-west is not working. The greater population, and the significant increase in population in recent months as a result of the crisis in Ukraine, together with the significant changes that have happened across society in recent years, require urgent attention. The open letter I mentioned refers to the inability to retain staff. This is probably not a surprise because some people have used the opportunity to recognise just what a difficult working environment it is, and it is a difficult working environment. While this situation continues to make headlines for this reason, it is going to be difficult to hold onto current staff or to attract new staff.

An entire reboot is needed. The Minister and his Department are rightly apprised of the situation and they are in a position to make this happen. This open letter also referred to the necessity for Limerick hospital to be the first location to get a surgical hub. The Department is talking about building several of them around the country and I ask that support be shown to the hospital and the doctors by putting the first of these surgical hubs into Limerick hospital. Let the investment be front-loaded into the mid-west region to overcome the imbalance that has existed for a considerable time.