Deputy Séamus Pattison has been given permission to raise the matter of the urgent need to proceed with the development of St. Luke's Hospital, Kilkenny. Deputy Pattison has five minutes.
Adjournment Debate. - Kilkenny Hospital Project.
I regret that the Minister for Health is not here tonight to listen to my few words. That is no reflection on the Minister of State.
The people in Carlow and Kilkenny are in a state of uproar, and rightly so, because of the lack of any positive response by the Minister for Health to a South Eastern Health Board deputation which he received in Kilkenny last Friday in relation to the sanction which is awaited to proceed with inviting tenders for the very urgent and necessary development work at St. Luke's County Hospital in Kilkenny which serves the population of Carlow and Kilkenny.
The people of Carlow and Kilkenny were expecting a positive response from the Minister last Friday. These people have been extremely patient over a long number of years with the conditions in the hospital in Kilkenny. I would like to stress also that the staff in this hospital have also been extremely patient.
The patience is well exhausted and crisis point was reached a long time ago. The situation there is now worse than a crisis. I would be hoping that the Minister of State at the Department of Health, who is here for the Minister tonight, could give a positive answer to the question of when the works proposed can be commenced. These works are very modest, having regard to all the works that are required at this hospital which is now in a chronic and dangerous situation. The staff who have been magnificent beyond the call of duty are now extremely demoralised that they have not got this assurance they were led to expect would be forthcoming before the end of this year.
I am not one for over-stating matters or being alarmist and my record of many years in this House can prove that. No word I could find here tonight could overstate the seriousness of the situation. I hope the Minister will listen now to this earnest appeal I make to him because the staff, having done so much and worked so hard to serve the community in Carlow and Kilkenny, find that they are getting absolutely no help from the Minister.
I support Deputy Pattison in asking the Minister of State to eliminate any confusion that might exist as a result of a meeting between a deputation and the Minister for Health, Deputy O'Hanlon, last Friday in regard to the extension to St. Luke's Hospital. There is a greater patient throughput in that hospital than any other hospital in the south-east region. Hospitals such as those in Kilkenny and Galway, the Minister's own area, have problems with over-crowding, but in Galway there are other hospitals to alleviate that problem whereas Kilkenny has only one option, the corridors in St. Luke's Hospital. Last winter there was serious over-crowding in that hospital, particularly in the medical wards. I hope the Minister will ensure that the extension to that hospital which is essential will be provided forthwith.
I am pleased to have an opportunity to respond to this matter and I thank Deputies Pattison and Hogan for raising it. Deputy Aylward is also present for this debate. I want to explain the current position in relation to the development of St. Luke's Hospital, Kilkenny. The Minister for Health indicated previously in the Dáil that over-crowding has been a feature of this hospital for many years. On Friday last he met with a deputation from the South-Eastern Health Board in Kilkenny and discussed with them our Department's proposals for resolving the problems of the hospital.
We have always accepted that the provision of additional facilities at St. Luke's Hospital, Kilkenny, would have to be treated as a priority. To that end the Minister for Health earlier this year gave his approval for the proposed three storey development at the hospital to proceed to Stage 5 of planning. This involves expenditure of £144,000 in the current year. The proposed development will provide three new operating theatres, three new obstetric delivery suites, a new 16 bed paediatric unit, an intensive care unit and a central sterile supplies department. The overall cost of this project will be approximately £6 million. When the new children's ward is provided it will release space to ease pressure in the medical wards. The additional theatres and delivery suites will ensure that first class facilities are available at St. Luke's Hospital.
Of course, Deputies will be aware that this development is but one of a number of major developments in the acute hospital sector in the South-Eastern Health Board region. Capital resources are very limited. I am sure it will be of interest to the Deputies and the House to know, as the Minister has already pointed out to the South-Eastern Health Board, that capital expenditure this year of £14 million on the board's major hospital developments at Ardkeen in Waterford, costing a total of £60 million, and Wexford, costing £12 million, will account for approximately 40 per cent of the total capital resources available this year to our Department for all health services schemes throughout the country. In line with that, in 1989 30 per cent of the entire capital budget for the Department of Health programme was spent in the South-Eastern Health Board area. Therefore, over the past two years 33 per cent of the entire capital budget for the Department of Health programme has been expended in the South-Eastern Health Board area.
What about St. Luke's?
The priority for spending that money has been decided by the South-Eastern Health Board — Ardkeen, Wexford and now St. Luke's. I am surprised that the Deputies, when their parties were in power, did not ensure that this work was carried out. The House must accept the bona fides of the Minister who has committed himself to the extension of this hospital and to spending £144,000 on the new section this year.
Out of £6 million.
Unless you plan you cannot spend. The Deputies will appreciate that further progress on the proposed project in Kilkenny has to be considered in the light of projected expenditure in 1991 on the projects at Waterford and Wexford. We will look as sympathetically as possible at the further development of the Kilkenny project in the light of the total 1991 capital allocation for our Department and the many other competing demands from all over the country for other highly desirable developments both in the acute hospital sector and other care programmes.
Officials from my Department are available at any time to discuss with the South-Eastern Health Board or the hospital authorities concerned any difficulties being encountered by St. Luke's in the provision of services. I appreciate the interest the Deputies have shown in this matter. We have received constant representations in this regard from the other Oireachtas Members in the constitutency, Deputy Liam Aylward and Senator Michael Lanigan. I can assure the House that we will do our utmost to see that the resources, as they become available, are allocated to the Kilkenny project to ensure that it comes on-stream as quickly as possible.