This is the first occasion I have raised a matter on the Adjournment to highlight the case of a constituent in the manner I highlight one this afternoon. I raise this matter out of utter frustration with the Department of Health and Children and the hospital authorities.
As the Minister will know, it involves the case of a 24 year old young woman who has spina bifida. Before Christmas she visited her brother in Navan, County Meath, when, unfortunately, she had to be hospitalised urgently. She was then transferred to Beaumont Hospital. Following an intensive period there, the life threatening problem she had subsided and she is slowly, but surely, on the road to recovery.
We have been told she can only be transferred back to the hospital which referred her to Beaumont Hospital. This is an absurd policy as it involves transferring her back to the hospital in Navan, although she lives at least 30 to 40 miles away from it. There is already considerable stress on her family, particularly her mother, because she is now looking after her four year old son as well as her father who is quite sick and was in Tallaght Hospital for a two week period and was only released the other day.
I ask the Minister in a most unusual way, through an Adjournment matter, to intercede and to ensure this patient is transferred to Tallaght hospital or St. James's Hospital. It is ludicrous that an official or a Department should allow a situation whereby someone could be transferred back to a referring hospital, although it is 40 miles from where that person lives. Will the Minister also consider the fact that the person in question has been treated on a continuous basis in St. James's Hospital and, prior to that, in Our Lady's Hospital in Crumlin? Her entire hospitalisation has been within those hospitals in the south and south-western part of the city. It is absurd and wrong that a Department official or people operating in our hospitals should argue that this person should be transferred back to the referring hospital in Navan because, unfortunately, she happened to be critically injured in Navan.
Will the Minister, who is not in the House – perhaps the Minister of State, Deputy Jacob, is replying to the debate – intercede on her behalf and ensure her quality of life and that of her family can improve? The family fully understands the difficult situation in which Beaumont Hospital finds itself as regards the intensive care unit. There is a need for some intervention to ensure she is transferred to Tallaght Hospital or St. James's.
