Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Saolta has today provided an update on the hospitals in its area. General manager James Keane of Portiuncula University Hospital gave an update and spoke to the fact we are seeing reductions in waiting lists for outpatients and inpatients. In the cardiology area alone, there were massive reductions. There is a new consultant, advanced nurse practitioners and cardiophysiologists who work in the community 50% of the time and on-site in the hospital 50% of the time. There have been reductions to waiting lists of up to 65%. This means longer lives for people. It is improving patient outcomes in Ballinasloe and east Galway in the west of Ireland.

I last year advocated strongly to the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, and the Taoiseach's office to ensure an extension project for the emergency department project in Portiuncula University Hospital was included in the HSE capital plan. More than 30,000 people attended Portiuncula University Hospital's emergency department last year. It is probably the only hospital in the Saolta group that has not had any work done to its emergency department. There is a surge in the emergency department in the area, with high numbers of people on trolleys, and an increase in older patients who are 75 and over. It is crucial that we are seeing the extension move from design stage to the construction stage.

A new consultant geriatrician will join the team in Portiuncula University Hospital in May and will work 50% of the time in the community and 50% of the time in the hospital. People will be delighted to know that more people are living in the west. Our maternity hospital is one of the busiest. Some 13,600 babies come into the world in Portiuncula hospital. The midwifery team is participating in a national pilot on enhanced post-natal care. I highlight that the hospital only has 13 single beds for a catchment area of over 400,000 people. That does not include just Ballinasloe but also includes Galway, Roscommon, Westmeath, Offaly and north Tipperary. It is the hospital for Athlone. This hospital increased by 12 the number of single of beds and doubled the number in the hospital by repurposing its outpatients department.

In 2019, I secured a meeting with then Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, and a clinical management team who visited Leinster House. At that point, we got an allocation of funding for that 50-bed ward. The general manager today indicated that the ground floor is now going to be completed. The ward with single-bed en suite rooms will be fully completed in April and an opening is planned for August and September of this year. This is an incredible development and we need to see more of it. All I can say is that I know there will be further demand for investment in that hospital.