Health system in this county is in crisis says councillor Gerry McMonagle
The Letterkenny-based councillors said a number of factors are contributing to the high numbers attending the Emergency Department at Letterkenny University Hospital
The Chairperson of the Regional Health Forum West has said that the health system is in crisis in Donegal and has called for community hospitals to be reintroduced to their original standard and that minor injury clinics should be set-up in both south Donegal and Inishowen.
Councillor Gerry McMonagle said he believes the issues relating to the health system began when local community hospitals lost services. Many people would have gone to these local institutions with minor injuries or other ailments, he said.
“I know that some of this is being returned but it is taking a long time. You could nearly trace this back to the centralisation of emergency services, into Letterkenny University Hospital,” he said.
Mr McMonagle said the county is too big for the centralisation of emergency services and many people live in rural areas. While he welcomed the opening of primary care centres he said they are yet to be fully utilised or fully staffed to provide the services they need to.
The Letterkenny-based representative said that NowDOC/Caredoc do not have the same access to diagnostics and other services that GPs do and, at times, need to err on the side of caution and send people to the Emergency Department. The lack of beds, the lack of home-help hours all lead to difficulties within the health system in the county, he said.
“That to me is just the perfect storm - it is not just one thing and we have the lack of beds and 360 people waiting for home help in Donegal so for the elderly people who are getting released from hospital there is really nowhere for them to go there is no home help for them in the house if they go back so they have to stay in hospital beds longer,” he said.
He said the situation at Letterkenny University Hospital continued to be bad at the weekend with his getting statements on Friday to say that there were a lot of people waiting and elective surgery was to be halted:“I know from talking to staff at the hospital that over the last three years that they’ve lost twenty senior members from the emergency department - these are people that we could do without losing because of the pressures they are under constantly."
He said that his greatest concern was for elderly patients who have to sit for long durations waiting for a bed. He said he knows of a patient who had to wait up to twenty-one hours for a bed.
“It is just not fair, it is just not right,” he said.