FF will provide extra beds to ease Emergency Department crisis – Murphy
Published on: 28 January 2020
Fianna Fáil General Election candidate for Cork North Central Sandra Murphy says her party has a credible, fully costed plan to ease the current crisis in the Emergency Department at Cork University Hospital.
She was speaking following the publication of the Fianna Fáil General Election manifesto.
“The Emergency Department at CUH is working far beyond it capacity. The facility opened in 2005 to cater for approx 40,000 patients largely an ambulatory patient population and not the level of children or frail elderly that are now presenting. In 2019, the CUH ED saw 68,000 patients – this cannot continue”, said Ms Murphy.
“Tackling the emergency department trolley crisis and improving timely access to specialist clinical services will be a priority for me should I be elected. My party is committed to this and has published a range of fully costed measures to address the issue head on.
“Fianna Fáil will increase bed capacity and has committed to rolling out an additional 2,600 beds as recommended under the Capacity Review. We will also aim for a four-hour target wait for Emergency Departments as well as ensuring that an Emergency Medicine consultant is on duty in EDs on a 24/7 basis.
She added, “This is my first campaign to seek election to public office. Like so many people, I’ve been irritated and disappointed by the inertia of the Fine Gael government. Their failure to deal with big issues such as health, housing, homelessness has been incredible.
“Over the past couple of weeks of the campaign I have encountered a huge level of despair, frustration, and anger on the doorsteps. Our country has suffered as a consequence of the empty promises Fine Gael has made over the past four years.
“I, along with my Fianna Fáil colleagues are committed to real and meaningful change. We want to see better public services and a fairer Ireland – one which will see more investment in our communities and a health service that serves everyone”, concluded Murphy.