Paul McAuliffe
Question:9. Deputy Paul McAuliffe asked the Minister for Health for an update on plans to expand the provision of services at Cappagh hospital. [49073/23]
View answerThursday, 9 November 2023
Questions (9)
Oral answers (6 contributions)
Can the Minister update the House on the plans to expand the provision of services at the National Orthopaedic Hospital Cappagh, in my constituency?
I thank Deputy McAuliffe for the question. I acknowledge his ongoing advocacy for Cappagh hospital, which is our national orthopaedic hospital. I have had the opportunity to visit Cappagh on several occasions and I am very strongly supportive of the hospital staff and the work they do. They needed more money. There has been a significant increase in investment but I would like to talk as well about the further investment that is needed.
Since 2019, funding for Cappagh has increased by nearly €50 million. That is about a 27% increase in funding, which is very welcome. What that has allowed the hospital to do is to significantly increase the staff, by nearly a quarter, so it is at 528 staff now. We all know the essential work that they are doing. Cappagh has worked on its overall master plan. It launched Cappagh Kids some time back, which is an incredible service as well. I was out with them recently enough. I believe the project the Deputy is referring to is the master plan that Cappagh has put forward for 76 single-occupancy rooms in one block, ten high-dependency unit beds and initially three operating theatres, which would very significantly increase surgical capacity by about 60%. I am fully supportive of this. After I met Cappagh some time ago on this project, I contacted the HSE immediately and said this project needed to be prioritised and it must happen. Our orthopaedic waiting lists are too long. I would argue that probably the single most important thing we can do to permanently reduce the waiting lists for orthopaedics and make sure people can get the care they need I would argue is this investment in Cappagh. We have seen in Croom, County Limerick, the small orthopaedic facility there has had a huge increase in the number of patients they are seeing with that investment.
Cappagh hospital is in my constituency but as the Minister rightly says, it is a national hospital. My colleagues, Deputies Cahill and Brendan Smith, have been plaguing both the Minister and the Ministers of State, Deputies Butler and Rabbitte. We have had extensive visits from Ministers. The Taoiseach himself has been out, as has the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and many others. It is a fantastic hospital. There is great energy there. What the hospital did during Covid was really impressive, yet it is operating in many ways within some of the old Nightingale wards that it has in place, and within more limited means.
As the Minister says, the proposal outlined is for a 76-bed single occupancy ward block, three theatres and the refurbishment of the radiology services. A strategic assessment report was due to be undertaken on the proposal. Could the Minister write to me as I would be interested to know whether that has taken place? For clarification, what stages are left in regard to the proposal that require to be progressed before the final decision is made to proceed?
I have some good news for Deputy McAuliffe this morning. I am delighted to be able to tell him that just two weeks ago the HSE board approved this project. That was one really important milestone. The strategic assessment report or preliminary business case is done. It has been approved by the HSE board and has now been sent to my Department for a review. There is an external review that has to be done. I have no doubt but that this project will be supported. It is a very significant capital investment. It has my full support and I will be pushing to have this fully approved, detailed design teams appointed and in place, moved to tender and then get diggers on site as quickly as we can out at Cappagh.
I very much welcome the confirmation that the project has been approved by the HSE board. There is great goodwill here. Sometimes we need to just keep pushing it through the bureaucracy. There is no better man than the Minister to do that. It affects people in my constituency but it is a national resource. There is great energy and effort here and it will go a long way to meeting the needs of patients, many of whom have been waiting too long, and which the Government is doing everything it can to address.
We are in full agreement. One of the priority areas for our waiting list action plan is orthopaedics. We know that when people are waiting for operations, be it a hip operation, a knee operation or whatever it might be, they can be waiting in agony and they can be waiting for a long time. When we were in opposition, I was out in Cappagh and I got a very sobering account from the clinicians as to what their patients were going through. It is one of the reasons we have put such an emphasis on the waiting lists.
Deputy McAuliffe will be aware that where people who are waiting just three months for some of the main orthopaedic procedures, the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, can now arrange care for them as well. That is going well, but regardless of that we cannot rely on additional private sector capacity for this. We need the capacity within the public sector. Croom has been a huge success and we fully intend for Cappagh to rightfully get the significant investment and to let those good folk do the work that they want to do and they know how to do so well.