Concern at hospital appointment cancellations touching nearly 250,000

DUBLIN, Ireland: Sinn Fein Leader Mary Lou McDonald has highlighted the concerning trend of hospital appointment cancellations in the Dail, revealing that approximately 250,000 appointments, including 800 chemotherapy sessions for children, were called off last year.

"On the watch of this Government last year, 250,000 hospital appointments were cancelled. That is a record," she said.

She emphasized the emotional toll these cancellations take on families and urged the government to address chronic overcrowding in hospitals.

"Just imagine the cancellation of a child's chemotherapy appointment. This is the cancellation of an appointment which a parent knows is a big part of one's child's fight. The Government has to stop this happening, I say to the Taoiseach. To stop the problem of cancellations, the Government must solve chronic overcrowding created by the Taoiseach's Government's policy."

"We do not have enough healthcare staff right across the system. We need 3,000 additional hospital and community beds and well the Taoiseach knows it."

Responding to McDonald's remarks, Taoiseach Simon Harris accused her of misrepresenting the figures, pointing out that the Health Service Executive had cautioned against comparing cancellation data between years. He emphasized the significant increase in healthcare staff since the last general election and highlighted progress in reducing cancer mortality rates.

"The deputy talks quite rightly about the need for more staff, but it is important for the deputy to acknowledge that since the last general election in 2020, we have 28,000 additional staff working in the Irish health service.

"When the deputy talks about recruitment freezes, pauses and the like, it ignores the reality that this year the Irish health service has money to hire 2,200 additional staff."

He told the Dail that cancer mortality rates have decreased by 14 percent for men and 13 percent for women. He said this was better than the European average of 10 percent and five percent, respectively.

"We have a plan to eradicate cervical cancer," Harris added.

"Huge progress has been made, and I note the deputy's support in that regard for the HPV vaccine and the like.

"We can actually eradicate a cancer in this country by 2040, and the Minister for Health (Stephen Donnelly) will publish the plan as to how he intends to do that this year."