LAST UPDATE | 9 Oct

IN AN EMOTIONAL speech, Alan Kelly has told the Dáil that Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary are “discriminated against” in terms of hospital services.

Speaking during Leaders’ Questions today, the Tipperary North TD told Tánaiste Simon Harris that his mother is currently in Nenagh Hospital and that he refuses to put her into University Hospital Limerick (UHL).

Last November, a report by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) found “significant risks” to patient safety in UHL’s emergency department. 

A new emergency department opened at UHL in 2017, but it has struggled to keep pace with growing demand.

HIQA has said “urgent action” is needed from the government in response to the issues at the hospital. Among the options it has suggested is an expansion to the hospital or the development of a new hospital at another location in the Mid-West.

During his speaking slot today, Kelly also spoke of his late father, who died last year. 

“On the 22nd of October last year, I stood here more or less giving live evidence of why elderly people are afraid to go into UHL. That was about my own father,” he said. 

Kelly said he had to convince his father to get in an ambulance and go to UHL. 

“What’s on my conscience is the fact that he went in there afraid,” Kelly said.

He continued:

“My mother is in Nenagh Hospital at the moment, She will not be put into UHL because at this moment in time, I won’t allow it.

“It’s nothing to do with the workers. It’s to do with the circumstance. We have been discriminated against in the Midwest.”

Kelly added that his wife got very sick months a few months ago in the middle of the night. 

“I rang somebody who’s working in the HSE, asked for advice. They said, go to Portlaosie [Regional Hospital]. I’m about 25 minutes from UHL [but] I went to Portlaoise,” Kelly said.

Kelly said a new hospital is needed for the Mid-West “full stop”. 

In response, Harris thanked Kelly for highlighting the issue and extended his sympathy to Kelly for the loss of his father and the health difficulties being experienced by his wife and mother. 

Harris said the “generation of politicians that went before us gave an example of how you botch up health reconfiguration”.

“I genuinely believe people in the Mid-West were badly served by a reconfiguration that tried to change services on the promise of a better tomorrow, which didn’t put the better tomorrow in first.”

He added that he believes it was actually an example of how “not to do” health reconfiguration. 

“And if we’re being honest, ever since then, successive governments have been trying to play catch up in relation to a variety of issues in the Mid-West, most particularly and most acutely, the issue of bed capacity,” Harris said.

He said the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, is in the process of considering the recommendations put forward by Hiqa and will report back to government.

“But I will share your recommendation with the minister also. I think there’s a lot of logic in it,” he told Kelly.