Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. A total of €35 million has been given to Portiuncula University Hospital for the provision of a 50-bed unit. The facility, which was opened on 11 September by the Taoiseach, will transform patient care. It is a crucial development. In 2019, I brought a clinical delegation from the hospital to Leinster House to meet with the now Taoiseach and then Minister for Health, Simon Harris, to fight for this. It should have happened ten years ago. A great deal of other investment in the hospital should have already happened and that must happen now.

This development is so welcome. It will ensure we have more capacity within the hospital. It is an acute level 3 hospital operating on a 24-7 basis. It is the maternity hospital for the region. It is a training hospital with multiple medical academies that is working in co-operation with the University of Limerick and the University of Galway. The two 25-bed wards, the Orchard and Garbally wards, have just opened. On his visit to Ballinasloe, the Taoiseach spoke about the investment in Portiuncula University Hospital. He spoke about how it is more than just a hospital but is also a community in the town and for the surrounding areas. He spoke about the extension of day services, oncology services and the funding delivered for the sterile support department and the new ambulatory gynaecology unit, which is due to open shortly.He acknowledged the conversion of the outpatients department, which was done after the Covid pandemic. Before the pandemic, we had 13 single rooms in that hospital. As a result of the work by the clinical team there, the outpatients department was converted to the Dunlo suite and doubled the availability of single rooms. We have seen the expansion of minor operations and plastic surgery; the new nurse-led infusion unit; the opening of the Willow suite, which is the protected space for bereaved families in the maternity unit; and a brand-new advanced nurse practitioner take up her position in Portiuncula University Hospital.

Two years ago, I advocated strongly with the then Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, that we should have additional treatment bays in our emergency department, which has seen zero investment or work over the past decade to two decades. This is at design stage, and I am very grateful for the work that has been done in the Department of Health to progress it, but I know we see significant waiting lists and people on trolleys. This happens, of course, coming into every winter, but we have seen huge episodes also over the summer, when there are spikes.

Today, we will hear about our budget and allocations to each Department. Fine Gael in government will deliver one of the largest budgets in health, and I know the Minister of State will welcome that. I want to see an update here on the timeline for the construction stage and capital expenditure for the nine treatment bays in the emergency department. I want to know what is happening with the multi-bed ward blocks. We have moved and will be moving patients out of those ward blocks and into the 50-bed unit. What will we do now? How will we renovate those multi-bed blocks that are in the middle of the hospital and that could be used for so many other roles and positions?

Staffing is always one of the key issues that is brought up when it comes to our hospitals. We see that the challenges around recruitment are being lifted and that there is more availability. There is, however, more administrative sign-off and there are various approvals and different stages relating to the recruitment process. The latter make the recruitment process in a hospital healthcare network that is mammoth even longer. Our student nurses need clinical placements. We need to make sure we have the people in place in our hospitals to provide those clinical placements in order that we can bring in more students and student nurses, particularly into our specialties.

We know that maternity leave has been a big issue. When I speak here about capital expenditure, I am bringing in something around staffing. Maternity leave, when it happens, is causing huge challenges around replacements for maternity leave.