Hospital Services
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-21
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Pauline Tully (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel

The people of Cavan and I are delighted that we have a general public hospital in our county but we want a hospital we can trust. We want to know that when somebody goes in there for whatever reason, he or she will be cared for in a timely fashion. I have had wonderful experiences in the hospital and there are wonderful staff in there but they are overworked. Hospital management has said that it operates at safe staffing levels and so forth and the Minister of State's response says the same, but that is not the feeling these individuals, their families and many others have when they go into the hospital. They see staff who are rushed off their feet and who do not have time to see to patients properly. It is not fair. It is putting pressure on them and that is when mistakes are made. In this case, mistakes were possibly made and, as I said, we need answers as to what happened here. We also need to ensure it does not continue to happen.
I have become aware of four cases in the last year. There was a young lad in February who was left too long and his appendix ruptured as well, but thankfully he did not seem to have any bowel complications afterwards. Another young woman told me that her colon was perforated when she was getting her appendix removed. There are complications there and the issue is staffing levels. We need more staff to ensure patients are seen to promptly. These families were traumatised. One mother who reached out to me said they could not speak about it for months afterwards because they were so traumatised by what they went through and so worried about their son at the time.
I would appreciate this being brought to the attention of the Minister so that we can get a comprehensive reply to the specific issue raised.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-21