Noel Coonan (Tipperary North, Fine Gael)
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Question 199: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the number of recommendations outlined in a report (details supplied) that have been carried out to date in 2009 and if they were completed on schedule; if the remaining commitments are on schedule and when they will proceed and be completed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [47008/09]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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The HSE reconfiguration plans which are underway in the Mid-West Region are informed by the Teamwork/Horwath Report referred to by the Deputy. The Report highlighted the need for changes to be made in the organisation and provision of acute hospital services across the region as it found services there to be too fragmented, to carry increased risks for patients and staff and to be unsustainable in their present form. The reconfiguration of services in the Mid-West Region began in early April, 2009. This involved the cessation of 24-hour Accident and Emergency services at Ennis and Nenagh. These hospitals now provide an urgent care/minor injuries service for 12 hours a day as part of a regional Accident and Emergency structure.

The level of staffing of the ambulance services in Clare and North Tipperary has been enhanced and an advanced 24-hour paramedic service is also now in operation. Protocols are in place to ensure that all trauma, paediatric and obstetric emergency cases are brought directly to the major tertiary centre at Limerick Regional Hospital. All planned and emergency in-patient surgery has been moved from Ennis and Nenagh to Limerick Regional Hospital since early October, 2009. Ennis and Nenagh Hospitals are undertaking an expanded range of day case surgery and diagnostic work.

I am pleased with the progress being made in this important project. I believe that the measures are necessary and appropriate to ensure the provision of safe and effective health services to the people of the Mid-West Region. I have asked the HSE to respond to the Deputy in relation to the detailed information that he has sought.