Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 11 Jul 2001

Vol. 167 No. 15

Adjournment Matters. - Hospital Services.

Mrs. Taylor-Quinn

I wish to raise the matter of the provision of a proper health service at Ennis General Hospital. I raise it because there is a complete shortage of beds at the hospital. The reduction in the number of beds at the end of the 1980s, from 128 to 88, has meant that there is a serious inadequacy in the capacity of the health service in County Clare. It is very important that the Minister and his Department look at this issue and respond to a proposal put forward by the Mid-Western Health Board to address this problem.

It is also important that the range of services being provided at Ennis General Hospital is improved. The installation of a CT scanner is needed. I ask the Minister to address this matter urgently. In addition there is a need to increase the medical staff within the hospital in order to expand the range of services available. Ennis is the most quickly expanding town in Ireland and one of the most quickly expanding towns in Europe. It is important to put in place the services required by an expanding population.

We are very disappointed that, as a neighbour of County Limerick, we are the poor relation as far as the Mid-Western Health Board is concerned. If the Minister examines the funding provided for the health board and the amount from the budget allocated to County Clare, he will see that a disproportionately large amount is retained in County Limerick. A very small proportion is provided for the health service in County Clare.

We in Clare are not prepared to accept continuing regionalisation to the detriment of Ennis General Hospital. There is a real need to focus strongly on ensuring that Ennis General Hospital is upgraded. There is a need to provide the hospital with a minimum of between 130 and 140 beds, to increase the medical and nursing staff to support that complement of beds and to put in place the necessary equipment to extend and expand the range of services.

I plead with the Minister of State to address this as a matter of urgency. For too long we have been left in no man's land between Galway and Limerick and the people of Clare are no longer prepared to accept that. It is now coming to a critical point. The inadequacy of the response from the Mid-Western Health Board to both the Oireachtas Members and various delegations is no longer acceptable. The people of Clare are no longer prepared to accept the type of treatment which has been dished out. We want action. We want the provision of a proper service and are requesting the Minister to ensure that that is delivered.

We also want a proper emergency medical treatment unit and additional MT units put in place in Scariff and Kilrush, with two emergency medical technicians in each of the ambulances concerned. This is particularly necessary in Kilrush during the summer when there is a large population in the town of Kilkee – up to 20,000 people on any given weekend. The ambulance service in that area is abysmal. The people trying to work in the ambulance service in Clare are totally under resourced. There is an inadequate number of ambulances available within the county.

These are basic health services matters which must be addressed. The Mid-Western Health Board has at least told us in Clare that it has made a submission to the Department to have funding provided for an increase in the number of beds at Ennis General Hospital and for an upgrading of the hospital. We want the full support of the Department in ensuring that action will be taken sooner rather than later.

Currently a certain amount of construction works are being undertaken at the hospital. This is the result of clearance of work which was actually commenced and directed by the then Mini ster for Health, Deputy Noonan, in 1996. This work is not yet complete, which is totally unacceptable and unsatisfactory. I request the Minister of State to view this as a matter of urgency, to bring it to the various sections in her Department and to have the funding channelled to Clare, whether it is coming directly from the Department or from the budget of the Mid-Western Health Board.

There is a need for a serious examination of the management structures within the Mid-Western Health Board. Certain aspects need to be examined, particularly the sale of Our Lady's Hospital by the Mid-Western Health Board. That hospital, which was owned by the people of Clare, was handed over to the health board in 1973 for a nominal sum and was sold on to SFADCo, which, in turn, sold a portion of it back to Clare County Council. This was a development worthy of condemnation. In addition, the health board proceeded to spend sums far in excess of what it got for Our Lady's Hospital on purchasing other facilities which would not have half the capacity. There is a real need to have these matters clearly examined and for those who proceeded down that line to give a full account of why it was done in that manner. There are questions here to be answered and I hope the Minister will have them answered.

I hope she also recognises that the capital assets of the Mid-Western Health Board in the Clare area have been substantially reduced by the sale of Our Lady's Hospital. This involved a substantial loss to the State over and above what could have been secured for the property concerned.

There are questions to be answered and action needs to be taken. I request the Minister of State to undertake that.

Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children (Ms Hanafin)

On behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin, I thank Senator Taylor-Quinn for raising this issue. I am glad of the opportunity to inform the House of the current position on Ennis General Hospital. As the Senator will be aware, the provision of services at the hospital is a matter for the Mid-Western Health Board in the first instance having regard to its overall priorities for the ongoing development of services in the region in the context of available funding.

The Mid-Western Health Board has received in its determination for 2001 in excess of £308 million, which includes acute hospital service development funding of approximately £3.5 million. Under the national development plan, funding has been indicated to each health board for this year and each subsequent year of the plan. My Department is responsible for the overall strategic management and co-ordination of the NDP. Responsibility for the prioritisation and delivery of projects is a matter for the Mid-Western Health Board in this instance. Earlier this year, funding of £18.688 million was indicated to the Mid-Western Health Board for each care programme for 2001, excluding information and communications technology and research. This includes a figure of £7.293 million for capital development for acute hospitals.

The Minister has also initiated a national review of bed capacity in both the acute and non-acute sectors, on foot of the commitment by Government in the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness. The review is being conducted by the Department of Health and Children in conjunction with the Department of Finance and in consultation with the social partners.

The review is primarily focused on the emerging need to increase bed capacity and to have a strategic framework in place in terms of the number of additional beds required in the short, medium and longer terms. The findings of the review will be submitted to Government in the near future. The question of the need to increase overall acute hospitals bed capacity in the Mid-Western Health Board, including Ennis General Hospital, will be considered in the context of this review.

With regard to the future development of Ennis General hospital, the Minister has approved the establishment of a project team comprising officials from the Department, the Mid-Western Health Board and Ennis General Hospital staff to prepare a detailed brief for identified priority developments at the hospital. The work of the project team is ongoing. It is intended that the project team will produce a development brief for Ennis General Hospital which will present a clear definition of the Mid-Western Health Board's requirements for the development of the hospital. A design team will be appointed following agreement on the development brief by the project team.

The Minister accepts there is a need to enhance existing services on the Ennis General Hospital site to provide ease of access to the public to a cost effective service. It is important that the development plans take account of national policy which is to have a strong network of local and general hospitals, which serve defined catchment areas and which provide high quality hospital services, as well as providing for regional hospitals where more specialised services are available and which provide a broad range of regional specialties to the region they serve.