Harris to stay home due to trolley crisis
Minister shelves St Patrick’s Day trip to Netherlands
THE Minister for Health has cancelled his St Patrick’s Day trip abroad due to the hospital overcrowding crisis.
Simon Harris was due to visit the Netherlands and Belgium, where he was expected to meet health ministers from both nations.
But taking to Twitter last night, he confirmed that instead he would remain at home to tackle the health crisis.
‘People across the health service are working extraordinarily hard to make progress in what is a difficult week,’ he tweeted.
‘I am in regular contact with HSE. It would not feel right to me as minister to travel for St Patrick’s Day so I have made decision not to do so.’
His announcement followed calls from Independent TD Mattie McGrath, who asked the minister to reconsider his decisions to travel abroad for the Staying put: Simon Harris national holiday. ‘I think it is grossly irresponsible for Minister Harris to be out of the country at a time when almost every major local and regional hospital is in the grip of capacity crisis with respect to patients on trolleys,’ Mr McGrath said, prior to the minister’s announcement. ‘Unless he is going off to learn how The Netherlands achieved No.1 status on the Euro Health Consumer Index in 2015 or how it has managed to be listed in the top three European countries since 2005 in terms of health economics, then he is clearly failing in his sense of priorities.’
Overcrowding in hospitals reached record numbers this week, with 714 patients on trolleys on Monday – the highest number ever recorded.
Yesterday’s figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation’s Trolley Watch revealed that 649 people were waiting for a bed in hospitals across the State.
University Hospital Limerick had the highest number of people waiting on trolleys for the second day in a row, with 58 people without a bed.
The hospital cancelled nonurgent elective procedures for yesterday, and in statement said that they were reviewing procedures planned for today.
Tallaght-based GP Andy Jordan, who is chairman of the National Association of General Practitioners, believes that the issue needs to be tackled through improving primary care. Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland yesterday, Dr Jordan said that resources have been taken out of general practices across the country.
‘We’re looking at a 38% reduction in the resources going into the general practice to take care of patients who are the poorest and most vulnerable people in society, those people with medical cards entitled to free care provided by the State, and the funding per patient has been reduced by that drastic amount,’ he said.
‘Other countries that are faced with this crisis, the first thing they all have done is they have said: Okay, we need to resource primary care and general practice, we need to put proper systems in place.’
649 people on trolleys