Hospital lists are ‘scandal’ - Adams

SINN Féin Louth TD Gerry Adams has described the hospital waiting lists as ‘scandalous’ and accused three successive Fine Gael Health Ministers of failing patients and staff and of failing to end the crisis in Health.

The Louth TD was speaking in the Dáil during a Sinn Féin private members bill on hospital waiting lists in the health service. Deputy Adams identified the waiting lists in Louth County Hospital and Our lady of Lourdes Drogheda as deeply worrying.

Gerry Adams said: ‘Since 2011 Fine Gael has had three Ministers for Health. All have promised an end to the crisis in the health service. They have all failed. This is evident in the cervical screening scandal. It is evident in the ongoing crisis in our Emergency Departments.

The crisis in health is also evident in the failure to retain staff. It is evident in our grossly underfunded, under resourced mental health services. The failure to provide children in north Louth with access to Child Adolescent Mental Health Services; and the absence of a minor injuries unit in Louth County Hospital, are examples of this crisis.

In May over seven hundred thousand people were on hospital waiting lists. Over half a million are on outpatient waiting lists; and almost eighty thousand are on inpatient lists.

The two Louth hospitals - Louth County Hospital and Our Lady of Lourdes Drogheda – have almost fifteen thousand people on their outpatient waiting list. The same two hospitals have 1,330 patients on their inpatient list.