Govt has 'failed children of Ireland' as some wait over a year for hospital appointments

- Additional reporting by Press Association

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and the government have been accused of “failing the children of Ireland” with thousands of children waiting over a year for hospital appointments and health care.

Health was centre stage for Leaders Questions this afternoon in the Dáil after revelations on irishexaminer.com yesterday about shocking conditions in hospitals and long delay for procedures.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheal Martin attacked the government's record on health, describing the family of an elderly lady who said the system was like a “cattle mart” in University Hospital Limerick.

The Irish Examiner also revealed today that operations in the three main children's hospitals in Dublin had been postponed and ahead of the peak winter months.

Mr Martin said some 117,000 people were awaiting health care treatment, hospital appointments and procedures. Over 30,000 of these were children waiting for procedures and care for over a year, he said.

Many children waiting were “in pain and getting sicker” and would need “more serious interventions”, added Mr Martin.

Mr Varadkar replied that hospital units had been closed in recent days because of infections and viruses.

The spread of chest infections and the vomiting bug had seen restrictions in some hospitals, he told the Dáil.

The Taoiseach also spoke about the progress being made on the construction of the new national children's hospital.

But Mr Martin accused the government of “failing the children of Ireland”.

He pointed out that there were 400 children waiting over two years for orthopaedic procedures.

He asked:

You knew about the pressure that were going to come [in the health system], why didn't you anticipate, where was the preparation?

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald highlighted how elderly people had been left on trolleys and chairs in hospitals.

She urged Mr Varadkar to listen to the advice of nurses, midwives, hospital consultants and patients. This included calls for more recruitment in the sector, more beds, more step down facilities as well as more interventions for homehelp.

While Mr Varadkar defended the recent announcement in the budget of an extra million hours of homehelp, Ms McDonald said at least 2.5 extra million homehelp hours were needed just to clear the backlog.

Ms McDonald also read out accounts of patients who have recently attended the hospital with one describing the emergency department as being like a “war zone”.

“The daughter of an 83-year-old woman attending University Hospital Limerick said of her mother, she was soaked. There was urine everywhere and she wasn’t on a trolley. She was in the waiting room on a chair and they gave her some kind of pad and told her to sit on it,” she told Leaders Questions.

Ms McDonald told of a 73-year-old man on a trolley for 24 hours and of patients having oxygen bottles fitted to them while waiting in corridors.

“This crisis isn’t yours Taoiseach. It’s yours in the making you and Fianna Fail. Between you, you have created the situation where today there are 660 people waiting on trolleys across the state, 33 of them are children and Limerick University Hospital has once again, the highest number with 75 patients waiting,” she said.