Sligo University Hospital beds
Marian Harkin raised persistent bed shortages at Sligo University Hospital and said recruitment-based winter measures would not solve the problem in time. The Minister pointed to major extra funding, more staff, new beds and use of private capacity through the National Treatment Purchase Fund.
I again raise the issue of the large numbers of people waiting for beds at Sligo University Hospital, SUH. Since January of this year, SUH has had the third highest number of people waiting for beds. The headline for figures for Cork are worse, but bed capacity in Cork is more than twice that of Limerick so in real terms, in terms of capacity, SUH is second only to Limerick. Time and again I have been told the winter plan will deal with the problem. However, seven of the proposed actions in the winter plan for SUH entail recruitment of more staff. That will not happen in time. It is winter already. The INMO has proposed a four-pronged approach, including the use of private hospitals for non-urgent elective care. Will the Minister use private hospitals right now? If he will not do it nationally, will he at least do it for the five worst-hit hospitals, two of which are in the north west, in Sligo and Letterkenny? The Minister mentioned step-down facilities. I remind him that 16 private voluntary care homes have closed this year already.
Comment on this
Significant investment is going into Sligo University Hospital and the budget has increased by about €30 million up to €160 million in the past few years. There has been quite an additional increase in staffing as well. There are new beds. Deputy Harkin will be aware that I pushed very hard for four new ICU beds to be opened up. The HSE is now moving to staff them directly. In direct response to Deputy Harkin's question on whether we will use private capacity to get people the care they need, we will do so and we are doing so. Significant funding is in place through the National Treatment Purchase Fund and the waiting list action plan to use that. We want to use public facilities wherever possible, but given the number of people waiting, we are using all of the available private healthcare facilities for now. Ultimately, we are in the middle of the biggest expansion in capacity in the public service since the foundation of the HSE to make sure the public service can handle all of the demand from the country.