Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has called on the Minister for Health to stop squandering taxpayers\u2019 money by delaying a decision on a new Dialysis Unit for Tallaght Hospital.<\/p>\n
The Sinn F\u00e9in TD raised the issue in the D\u00e1il today saying there is a severe lack of capacity for dialysis in the region. He questioned the Minister on the continued delays in a promised new unit, especially considering that the current unit is not able to meet demand, while millions of euros are being spent on private services.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe\u00a0said:<\/p>\n
\u201cTallaght University Hospital is the regional centre of excellence for the Dublin Midlands hospital group and\u00a0provides regional services such as 24-hour acute kidney dialysis care and home dialysis therapies. The crux of the problem is that Tallaght now has insufficient capacity to meet its growing demands. The hospital staff are doing fantastic and lifesaving work, but it is clear that the original\u00a0unit has seen its day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe unit is clearly not HIQA compliant and because of the lack of space, it is open to cross-infection.\u00a0 If the unit is not compliant with the Department of Health\u2019s own infection guidelines, then there is a responsibility on them to fast track the building of a new unit.<\/p>\n
\u201cDialysis activity at Tallaght Hospital has increased to more than 30,000 dialysis treatments per year, but it only has a designed capacity for 9,000 treatments a year. The remainder are delivered in satellite dialysis units.\u00a0 This is private, costly, and represents an unacceptable clinical risk to many of the patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdditionally, according to the Midlands Hospital group, there is also a critical\u00a0shortage of capacity to deliver high dependency dialysis in the region, and they are relying on the\u00a0use of expensive\u00a0private providers as well.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Crowe continued<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year in a D\u00e1il question I asked Minister Harris to outline how much taxpayers\u00a0were paying for private dialysis services and was told that it cost over \u20ac4 million in 2017, and this doesn\u2019t\u00a0even include the added transport costs for dialysis patients, which was an extra \u20ac1.2 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is absolutely bonkers that the current system is squandering scarce money on private services when an alternative is available in Tallaght. The shovel ready site is identified, the building of the unit won\u2019t impact on the hospital, and there is no planning issue with the local authority, it just needs a final decision from Minister Harris.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2017 there was a commitment to go ahead with a new unit, but without warning, it was inexplicably\u00a0cancelled in January 2018. The continued delay and failure to build a new dialysis unit is impacting directly on patients, increasing health care costs, and having a negative effect on the hard pressed staff within the hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that a delay doesn’t make any financial sense.\u00a0 There is also a growing medical need and continued delays in building this new unit is putting lives at risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am calling on Minister Harris to urgently release the funding and finally authorise this badly needed new dialysis unit.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has called on the Minister for Health to stop squandering taxpayers\u2019 money by delaying a decision on a new Dialysis Unit for Tallaght Hospital. The Sinn F\u00e9in TD raised the issue in the D\u00e1il today saying there is a severe lack of capacity for dialysis in the region. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[407,181],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dialysis","category-tallaght-hospital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3621,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3620\/revisions\/3621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}