Member's statement: Altnagelvin Area Hospital: Emergency Department

Member's statement by Mr Daniel McCrossan on 14 September 2026.

MLA

Mr Daniel McCrossan

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

14 September 2026

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Altnagelvin Area Hospital: Emergency Department

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5685309

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Last week, I stood in the House and raised the disgraceful and shocking conditions faced by patients and staff at Altnagelvin Area Hospital emergency department. Since then, I have spoken to and heard from hundreds of people about the horrendous and horrific experiences that they have faced in our health service. What they told me should absolutely shame the Sinn Féin/DUP-led Executive who have spent more time poking holes in each other about flags and marches than they have in putting the interests of our people first when it comes to access to our health service. One man told me that he spent 73 hours in a chair in the emergency department — 73 hours, that is three days, sitting there waiting for care. He told me that the man sitting beside him had died while waiting for care. Another man told me that his 93-year-old mother spent 47 hours sitting on a chair waiting for a hospital bed whilst in extreme pain. A woman spoke of sitting on the floor caring for her 99-year-old grandfather who was left sitting on a chair with a wound to his head for 12 hours.

A family told me that their 87-year-old mother had spent three days in the emergency department, during which time she could not even access the toilet because there was only one there. Another patient described spending more than 60 hours in the emergency department, unable to get a bed and thus unable to sleep for three days while suffering severe pain, surrounded by people who were struggling with mental health issues and others with an alcohol addiction or other addictions, who were intoxicated.

What more evidence do the Executive need? Those are real people. They are our parents, our grandparents and our children. They are elderly people, sick people and frightened people. They are people who have worked all their life and paid into the health service, who, at their most vulnerable moment, are being left to sit on hard chairs and to lie in corridors for days seeking care. People are promised a modern healthcare service that they can access, but ours has become a Third World service. People rightly praise our doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants and support workers, all of whom are holding the system together, but staff are exhausted. They are trying to care for seriously ill patients and then trying to deal with people who are drunk or heavily intoxicated. One person described to me the moral injury suffered by staff, who know the standard of care that patients deserve but who simply do not have the beds, space or capacity to look after them. For many years, we have been promised a new emergency department at Altnagelvin. Every time that the matter is raised, there is a new excuse given, but the truth is that the hospital can no longer cope and that people are dying while this place —

— is dithering.

490 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 16:15 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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