Carthy reiterates call for additional services at Monaghan Hospital
Local Sinn Féin TD, Matt Carthy, has reiterated his call for the government to instruct the HSE to restore additional services to Monaghan Hospital. He said that the removal of services from local hospitals such as Monaghan by successive governments has been exposed as a fallacy during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the Dáil prior to the Christmas break Deputy Carthy had asked Health Minister Stephen Donnelly whether additional services would be restored to Monaghan Hospital in 2021.
In his response, Minister Donnelly stated:
“The services at Monaghan Hospital, as part of the Cavan & Monaghan Hospital in the RCSI Hospital Group, include theatre, day services, diagnostic services, ambulatory care, a Minor Injury Unit and a wide range of out-patient services. It also has 20 rehabilitation in-patient beds and 11 step-down beds, providing an invaluable service to patients following discharge from acute hospital services.
“A 23-bed Intermediate Care Unit in Monaghan Hospital is planned as part of Winter Plan 2020 to provide step down beds for Cavan Hospital patients. We are advised by the RCSI Hospital Group that 5 of these beds have opened recently and that the other 18 will open on a phased basis in the coming months”.
Speaking this week, Deputy Carthy reiterated the longstanding Sinn Féin demand that services at Monaghan hospital be restored and developed. Crucially, he said that proposals to return emergency services to Monaghan must be brought forward.
He said:
“2021 must be the year when the downgrading of Monaghan Hospital is reversed. The policies of removing services from hospitals such as Monaghan have been exposed during the Covid-19 pandemic as other centres have been overburdened.
“Crucially, we need to see proposals to restore emergency services at Monaghan Hospital. We know that pressures that are evident in A&E departments in centres such as Cavan and Drogheda. The policies of successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments have clearly failed. That needs to be acknowledged and those policies need to be reversed.
“I will continue to challenge the Minister for Health and all parties of government to return to common sense. That means returning services to our local hospital”.
ENDS
