Sinn Féin TD for Cavan-Monaghan Pauline Tully has expressed serious concern that Cavan General Hospital is not equipped to deliver safe and timely care. She said that the opportunity to build up bed capacity to tackle overcrowding had been squandered over the last four years by government. The comments follow remarks made by Prof Conor Deasy, President of the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine, who warned of a "massive capacity issue" in hospitals across the state.
Deputy Tully said; "The situation in hospital emergency departments across the state including Cavan General Hospital is chaotic. Workers are trying their hardest, doing long exhausting shifts and taking care of patients the best they can and I commend them. However, the Government abandoned patients and workers when they made a deliberate decision to underfund the health service in the Budget and failed to make investments in capacity over the last three Budgets. Hospitals simply don't have the infrastructure that they need."
Deputy Tully continued; "New figures show emergency department attendance in Cavan General Hospital over 2023 increased by almost 10% compared to 2019, and emergency department admissions were up 26% when comparing the two period. During 2023 there was a daily average of 5.4 patients counted on trolleys, a rise of 15.8% compared to 2022 The Government must urgently revise their budget for the health service in 2024 to target severe deficits - they must fund the promised 1500 hospital beds and deliver the statutory home care scheme. Local government TDs for this constituency must explain why they backed this appalling budget, despite the terrible consequences for the health service in Cavan-Monaghan."
