asked the Minister for Health if he is aware of the serious overcrowding in the County Hospital, Monaghan; and if he will state when work will commence on the extension of the hospital.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Monaghan County Hospital.
I am aware that proposals have been made for the extension of bed accommodation to relieve overcrowding in the County Hospital, Monaghan.
The position of the Hospitals' Trust Fund in relation to its existing commitments has become so serious that I have been obliged to undertake a review of the whole future building programme. This review will necessarily take some time and until it has been completed I shall not be in a position to arrive at a decision on the Monaghan County Hospital project.
Would the Minister bear in mind that, while he is cogitating, it is not desirable that the patients in the Monaghan County Hospital should have to be cared for on the floor? If the hospitals is overcrowded, some steps ought to be taken to allow the patients to be looked after properly. The Minister should have regard to that as an urgent matter outside any general review which he considers it necessary to make.
The Deputy is concerned about that situation. So am I. The difficulty is that the fund has been overburdened with commitments and that I have not any financial resources with which to carry on.
Does the Minister accept that, while it is quite understandable that he wants to make a general review, nevertheless, when he received representations that a big problem of overcrowding exists in one institution, it would be proper for him to consider the special circumstances obtaining in that institution, as distinguished from the general survey which he may conceive it to be his duty to make?
If these special circumstances were confined to, one insitution alone, I could do that, but the overcrowding is much more widespread than the Deputy seems to think.