Senator Lynn Boylan raises Tallaght Hospital delays in Seanad

Speaking in the Seanad on Tueday, Senator Lynn Boylan highlighted the excessive waiting times and the number of people on trolleys in the A&E Department at Tallaght Hospital.

Addressing the Seanad, Senator Boylan said the problems were due to the government’s failure to increase hospital capacity.

“Yesterday there were 546 people on trolleys across the country, 27 of which were in Tallaght Hospital,” she said.

“We are now heading back to the pre-pandemic days of overcrowded emergency departments and this is due to a failure of Government to properly resource hospital capacity expansion”.

Senator Boylan pointed to an incident in early March when a full time carer spoke of his ordeal at Tallaght hospital where he waited 24 hrs to be seen with his son, who had suspected appendicitis.

“While the father waited in the A&E with his sick son, he had no choice but to leave his disabled wife and their daughter with autism at home, alone,” Senator Boylan said.

“As he said himself, every nurse and doctor who he met was fantastic, caring, deeply apologetic and fed up to their back teeth with the systemic issues and working conditions.

“There is little doubt that with another Covid surge upon us there will be an inevitable increase in pressure on an already exhausted healthcare workforce and the fact that we are also correctly welcoming thousands of Ukrainian refugees here will further increase pressure on our health service.

“We need to hear from the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, as a matter of urgency as to how he intends to increase capacity in Tallaght’s Accident and Emergency Department and other A&E departments across Ireland.”