Badly managed Winter Plan adding to the trolley numbers

The winter crisis in our hospitals is an appalling mess that could have been partly avoided, according to Sligo Leitrim TD, Marian Harkin.

Speaking in the Dáil she told Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly that the government reacted too late, didn’t recruit or retain the necessary staff and didn’t engage promptly with the private hospitals and the nursing home sector, “these are all issues over which the government has control,” she said, “and did not sufficiently exercise it.

The Deputy reminded the Minister that staffing is a key issue over which the government has influence. “Why can we not recruit and retain the appropriate levels of staff,” she asked, “for the last two and a half years you've watched nurses and doctors emigrate and I was recently told by a consultant who had returned from Australia that there are more Irish ED consultants working in Western Australia and Perth than in all of Ireland. If that’s even close to the actual situation, it’s an appalling indictment of government policy to allow it to happen,” Deputy Harkin said.

The wave of illness should have come as no surprise, “the levels of infection and influenza prevalent in the winter season in the southern hemisphere should have acted as a red flag, and the necessary response was not put in place,” Ms Harkin said.

“The job of government is to plan, and to implement that plan in a timely way to deal with the reality of the situation” Ms Harkin continued, “you reacted too late, the Winter Plan did not deliver, you did not mobilize all the private beds in time to deal with the crisis.

"Yes, of course we have the chronic shortage of beds, and while that responsibility might personally not be yours it belongs to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael-led governments over the last 15 years. The pattern continues as we see some smaller nursing homes closing. Meanwhile, we are told there are two people in every ward ready to discharge into long-term care, but there aren’t sufficient nursing home places available."

Reacting to the Minister’s assertion that he has delivered record funding to the health service the Deputy said, “This is taxpayers’ money, and your responsibility is not to tell us you've spent it but to ensure it is well spent and delivers for those who attend our acute hospitals. How does this massive spending of money make a difference to all those people, sick people, and some very sick people, who spent their time in corridors and trolleys and side rooms outside wards for the last number of months, 120,000 people last year. What you're really saying to them is ‘Oh we spent more of your money than ever last year, but, sorry, you're still on a hospital trolley.

“I looked at the figures for Sligo University Hospital (SUH) 783 people were on trolleys in the month of November, yet what you're telling those people is that too many of them are getting sick and if fewer people got sick, then we wouldn't have this crisis in SUH and elsewhere.

“Some of the issues in our acute hospital system are longstanding, such as the availability of beds, and will require longer term government planning and resources.  Other issues are within the control of government right now and some of them have been badly managed, adding to our trolley numbers.

“Timing, delivery and accountability are crucial when it comes to managing the current crisis, in my opinion you have not managed it well,” Deputy Harkin concluded.