I welcome the opportunity to raise this issue. I thank the Minister for coming to the House to discuss this important matter which is reaching crisis point.
The County Hospital in Roscommon received an allocation of £300,000 for capital works in the surgical ward from the previous Government. That funding, which must be welcomed, is long overdue. This refurbishment will provide 30 beds where there are currently 29, in addition to four day beds and one bed for a hospice unit. This allocation is wholly inadequate to alleviate overcrowding in the hospital.
Prior to November 1996, St. Coman's medical ward, with an official complement of 31 beds, was overcrowded on a regular basis. The ward often accommodated 45 to 50 patients and occasionally more than that number. As a result, concerns arose about privacy, comfort, the ability to deliver nursing care and health and safety issues, including fire safety. Following a consultation process a limit of 37 was placed on the number of patients admitted to the ward, which has placed pressure on the accident and emergency unit in the hospital. Since this shift in policy, over 700 people have been obliged to remain on trolleys overnight with some spending up to three nights in these intolerable conditions. This is a damning statistic for any health service, particularly as the country is enjoying its greatest economic boom since the foundation of the State and has one of the fastest growing economies in the world. However, Ireland's expenditure on health is the third lowest of all OECD countries.
In the first eight months of the current year there have been 9,666 attendances at the accident and emergency unit, an increase of over 1,000 on the corresponding period last year. Since September 1997, no patient awaiting a bed is accommodated in the accident and emergency waiting area. Until that date, patients were accommodated in an area which was described by nursing staff as bleak and cold. Patients are instead cared for in the accident and emergency suite itself. This is placing serious pressure and demands on staff and putting the lives of critically ill patients in danger.
A patient recently entered the hospital during the early hours of the morning suffering a cardiac arrest and was obliged to wait for 15 hours on a trolley before being admitted to coronary care. This is only one of the many hair raising stories from the casualty unit and such situations should not be permitted to happen. Must we wait until something serious happens to a patient before the problem is rectified?
The County Hospital in Roscommon urgently requires additional funding to avoid a disastrous situation during the winter period when serious overcrowding traditionally occurs. This year the problem is worse because, due to overcrowding, enormous pressure was placed on staff, resources and accommodation during the summer. A time bomb is waiting to explode during the winter. I urge the Minister to provide funding for an additional 20 beds at the County Hospital. While any additional allocation would be welcome, the provision of 20 beds is the minimum required to ensure that this perennial problem can be tackled once and for all.
There is a need for the Department of Health and Children to honour a commitment given to the Western Health Board to provide funding for four nurses and one laboratory technician who were employed when the consultant geriatrician was appointed in 1993. For the past four years, the health board has had to fund these appointments from its own budget and the promised additional funding from the Department has not materialised. This additional pressure on meagre resources leaves little room for improvement.
The Fianna Fáil manifesto states that in Government that party would streamline accident and emergency services, particularly in Dublin where a major crisis develops each winter. There are serious problems in Dublin, but the greatest crisis this winter will occur in County Roscommon. The Taoiseach, when he was in County Roscommon prior to the election, gave a commitment that the required funding would be provided under a Fianna Fáil led Government. It is now time the Minister for Health and Children lived up to the commitments given by his Department and the Taoiseach. If this money is not approved immediately, the Minister will have blood on his hands in a couple of months.
I ask the Minister who does not live far from County Roscommon — just across the River Shannon — to view the position first hand. I will accompany him if he visits the County Hospital in Roscommon. The situation is serious and somebody will have blood on their hands if it is not rectified immediately.
