Donegal hospital and GP meeting
Deputy Doherty pressed the Health Minister to meet Donegal GPs and consultants about the crisis at Letterkenny University Hospital. The Minister said he had offered to meet them in the Dáil or by video call, sent an expert team to the hospital, and said funding had increased; Doherty kept asking when he would go to Donegal.
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Comment on this
It is now more than a month since more than 80 GPs and 11 consultants from my county and that of the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine wrote to the Minister for Health expressing their grave concerns at the deepening crisis in Letterkenny University Hospital. They have requested that the Minister for Health travel to Donegal to meet them urgently. The Minister for Health is sitting three seats away from the Minister, Deputy McConalogue. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine said on Highland Radio that the Minister for Health would come to Donegal. One month on, the Minister for Health has still not come to Donegal, has not met with them and has refused to take up that offer despite the crisis and despite the unprecedented intervention. On two separate occasions two weeks in a row the Minister for Health refused to come before this House to debate a Topical Issue with me and Deputy Mac Lochlainn on this crisis in Letterkenny.
I ask the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, or indeed the Minister for Health if he wants to discuss this, to stand up and be counted. The health professionals in Donegal, 80 GPs and 11 consultants, have made an unprecedented intervention to highlight the serious crisis at the hospital. They are demanding that the Minister for Health travel there. It is a month on and he has not shown them the respect to go to Donegal, meet them and hear their concerns. We want to hear his response.
Comment on this
I think we could do with a live fact checker for Deputy Doherty's contributions to the Dáil. He said I refused to come in here; the Minister of State, Deputy Butler came in.
Comment on this
He said I refused to meet the GPs.
Comment on this
In fact, I wrote back to the GPs immediately and on the basis of their concerns and the urgency they raised, I said that on a Dáil sitting day I could meet them here or we would do a video conference call. They declined that offer. The offer stands. My understanding is that the issues raised are serious. What we have done is we have immediately sent an expert team into Letterkenny hospital because we need to have an evidence-based conversation. The Deputy will be aware and the people of Donegal will be aware that there has been a very substantial increase in healthcare funding for the hospital and for Donegal community-based services. The GPs are absolutely correct in raising the issue of the increased trolley numbers; we are determined to get to the bottom of it. It is why I have sent in the expert group so that when I meet the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, Deputy Doherty and the GPs in Donegal we can have a conversation informed by what the expert group tells us.