I thank the Chair for allowing me to raise this matter. There has been a crisis in St. Joseph's Hospital since the end of December 1996 when the occupancy rate rose from 20 per cent to 50 per cent. Many people had influenza and suffered from serious chest ailments. At one time the hospital had up to 40 extra patients. The normal overrun has been 15 to 20 patients. Yesterday an old lady in a wheelchair waited for admission from 2 p.m. until 8 p.m. She is a venerable lady from a well-known family in the town but she was left in that position. Another man waited from 12 p.m. until after 8 p.m. yesterday.
Wards in Cashel hospital are closed and I do not understand why they have not been opened. Bureaucracy and maladministration has taken place. There is an overall plan to make Cashel a surgical hospital but since the excess occupancy rate has risen from 30 per cent to 50 per cent surely those wards should have been opened, as they were during the influenza crisis. Each time a crisis arises, the opening of wards has to be negotiated and discussed through the administrative bureaucracy. That should not take precedence over people.
I thank the Minister and his predecessor, Deputy Howlin, for putting in place a plan for the county hospitals in Tipperary. However, that will not be implemented until 1999 or 2000. There are 59 beds in the Clonmel medical unit, with an overrun of 20 to 50 per cent. This has had an effect not only on patients but also on the staff who are reaching crisis point. They cannot continue to bear the pressure, continually reassessing how many extra hours they will have to work and the effect this will have on their families. That applies to nurses and doctors alike. In the continuing over-capacity, eight beds are used where there used to be six, or ten beds used where there used to be eight, with no increase in the nursing staff. It takes away from the day treatment unit when a nurse must use her free time to help the nurses on the wards. It does not help the hospital overall. We are meeting administrative and bureaucratic problems. When wards in Our Lady's Hospital are closed, why should less sick and less urgent cases in St. Joseph's not be transferred automatically to fill those beds? Why is this allowed to continue?
The £12.3 million plan introduced by the Minister will not be in operation for three years. The contracts will not be ready until the end of the year. I accept the delay if the plans are well made. However, extra toilets and capacity must immediately be provided in St. Joseph's Hospital. One toilet facility is currently shared by 36 men and 29 women, which is not acceptable in a hospital today.
Small administrative measures can be taken to alleviate the matter. The total cost would only be £250,000 and it could be spent immediately, not just for the sake of the staff and the patients but for the image of south Tipperary. We are 25 years behind the other south-eastern counties because we suffered a civil war over hospitals. Let us make up for that in the best possible way by giving the money to ensure patients in Clonmel are looked after and an old lady does not have to wait for six hours and an old man for eight hours to get a bed. Let us also open the wards in Cashel hospital so that the less seriously ill can receive attention. Above all, let us put people before administration. I ask the Minister to look at the hospital administration.
