Carthy challenges Taoiseach on health
The Taoiseach warned that the country’s hospitals cannot operate at 95% occupancy during the flu season with the potential of COVID spreading as well.
Newly elected Cavan-Monaghan TD, Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy has challenged An Taoiseach Micheál Martin on his record while serving as Minister for Health.
The local Oireachtas representative claimed Deputy Martin’s “legacy” in Monaghan, in particular, was “one of a successive line of Ministers who oversaw the removal of services from our local hospital”.
He is demanding a review of services in hospitals such as Monaghan in view of the Covid-19-related restrictive measures being applied at Emergency Departments in Cavan and Drogheda.
“We should be aiming for a restoration and development of services such as accident and emergency services at hospitals like Monaghan,” Deputy Carthy contended.
But An Taoiseach lashed back by saying he was “not going to go through the mythology the Deputy articulated at the commencement” of his question.
An Taoiseach said: “I remember the decisions made by the North Eastern Health Board and we have come a long way in medicine since then. Very often now, it is the colleges of the various clinical specialities which determine the critical mass that justifies and sustains, for example, a maternity unit or an emergency department.”
Gone are the days, Deputy Martin added, “when politicians claim we should have an emergency department without any reference to the medical wherewithal that is required to sustain it and make it safe. That is an ongoing battle between the political world and the medical world as medicine advances. That said, our aim for acute and emergency cover in the north west, particularly with COVID-19, is to do everything we possibly can to develop capacity within respective hospitals, and short-term capacity in particular, because there will be pressure on emergency departments.”
The Taoiseach warned that the country’s hospitals cannot operate at 95% occupancy during the flu season with the potential of COVID spreading as well.
As a result, he said the HSE is now looking at how it can either “procure or develop capacity” quickly in certain locations to enable it to deal with the urgency of the next six to nine months.
Separately, and this time to the Minister for Health by way of Parliamentary Question, Deputy Carthy was told that Monaghan Hospital and Cavan General Hospital operate as a single entity, with an integrated managerial and clinical governance system, care pathways and support functions.
“The Emergency Department is located at Cavan General Hospital, while the facilities at Monaghan Hospital are focused on elective care and the streaming of appropriate patients to the Minor Injuries Unit located on site. Monaghan Hospital also continues to provide theatre, day services, diagnostic services, ambulatory care and out-patient services.”