Main pic: File image. Credit: Photo by OJO Images/Rex Features .
Sinn Féin’s Pádraig MacLochlainn has described as a ‘shocking collapse’, the drop in bed numbers at Donegal’s Community Hospitals over the past 20 years.
Quoting data released to him by the HSE, he said the bed total has gone from 442 in 2004 to just 304 today.
“That is a drop of almost one third and it is a truly shocking indictment of government failure,” Deputy MacLochlainn said.
This is further evidence, he claimed, of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael dismantling services in Donegal.
“Of course, the fewer beds in our Community Hospitals, the more pressure on Letterkenny University Hospital and it is no wonder that our major county hospital is always under so much pressure and why so many people must wait so long in the emergency department when patients have so few available beds in their local community hospitals to step down to,” he added.
He said there are government politicians ‘lining up’ for photo opportunities and to take credit for new community hospitals in Donegal that are being built or that are soon to start construction. “They need to be honest with the people of Donegal,” Deputy MacLochlainn continued.
“Their parties have overseen the dismantling of our Community Hospitals across Donegal and we are now only playing catch up, with serious consequences every day for older people, persons with disabilities and their families”.
