Hospital Services
Dail Éireann — 2021-11-30
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Anne Rabbitte (FF), Galway East

I suppose I should be glad you are in the Chair tonight, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, or you would be adding your voice on this matter. I acknowledge the Saolta group as I am a resident who accesses the Saolta group. It is important to put that on the record.
I accept that our waiting lists are far too big. Many patients are waiting an unacceptably long period of time. The waiting lists were too long before the pandemic but have worsened due to Covid-19 and the cyberattack. We are taking action to address this. For 2022, an additional allocation of €250 million will be used to fund additional activity in both the public and private sectors to reduce hospital and community waiting lists. The additional funding means there will be a budget of €350 million available to support vital initiatives to improve access to acute hospitals and community health services.
There is an acknowledgement in the response, and I echo it, that there is tremendous pressure in all the hospitals across the Saolta group.
The staff are working incredibly hard, but my reading out tonight what beds have arrived and what beds are coming on stream does not provide the care to the families who need it and does not give the hospitals the staff they need. Funding is not the issue at the moment. It is really hard to recruit staff into clinical posts. That is a major problem being faced in Sligo.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-11-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:53+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-11-30