Debate contribution: Altnagelvin Hospital: Access to Accident and Emergency

Debate contribution by Mr Daniel McCrossan on 21 January 2025.

MLA

Mr Daniel McCrossan

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

21 January 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Altnagelvin Hospital: Access to Accident and Emergency

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4750004

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Member who secured the Adjournment debate. There is no week or weekend that I do not receive a text message, phone call or other form of communication from people who are sitting in the emergency department at Altnagelvin. They sit there for endless hours in pain, on hard seats, if they are lucky enough to get a seat — some sit on the floor — some of them desperate to be seen. As we speak, at this very moment, there are people in such situations in Altnagelvin's emergency department. Although we have recognised for years the serious situation that we face there, we are still talking about it and not seeing any action taken. The culpability for that lies with Members of the House. It is our responsibility to do something about it. When we should have been taking action on the business case six years ago, the Assembly was not functioning. Today, when it is functioning, we are unified in our view of the emergency department at Altnagelvin and are well aware of the problems there, yet we are still talking about them. The Minister must know, as the rest of us do, that all the problems in our health service will not be fixed today or tomorrow — there is a lot of work to do — but what can be fixed is the situation and environment in which people wait for urgent care in the emergency department at Altnagelvin. With the greatest respect to everyone who works there, animals do not sit in such conditions. I have personal experience of that emergency department, so much so that it frustrates me to the point of anger. I have seen the inhumane conditions that vulnerable people from our communities — taxpayers who have worked their entire life — are expected to sit in. Reference has been made to the one toilet: it is disgusting. It is a hive of infection. There is no access to water or food, and people have had to sit there for hours — 19 hours or 21 hours — over and over again. Weeks before I sadly lost my mum in August, we made our trip to the Altnagelvin emergency department. One of my last memories of my mum, in the final weeks of her life, was that she cried sore because she did not want to go to that emergency department. She knew what she was about to face: chaos. We could not even get her a nebuliser. She sat for so long that we had to take her from the emergency department back to Strabane, get her nebuliser and take her back down the road. Is that the level of healthcare that we offer people who are struggling with illness and disease, vulnerable people and people who expect and deserve better from the system? We have had enough of excuses. We have had enough of talking about planning. There is no justification whatever for any of our people — family members, friends, neighbours or constituents — having to sit in those dire conditions. The staff have lost the will to work there. They are at their wits' end. We talk about the retention of staff in hospital emergency departments. Why would they work there when they have been treated so badly? They are worked to the bone. They are exhausted. Some staff have said that Altnagelvin's emergency department is not safe, while others have said that they cannot cope. On every occasion that I have visited someone in that emergency department and walked into the waiting room, which is the size of a prefab hut, people call me over and say, "Daniel, I have been sitting here since last night. Please speak to someone", "We cannot get this. We cannot get that", "Please get my mother seen" or, Please get my father seen". That is real life. While this place sometimes operates in a bubble, there are people out there in pain, struggling and suffering, and nobody in our society should endure what I have witnessed in the Altnagelvin emergency department. It is unforgivable. Let us stop talking about the business case for the new emergency department. Let us get it done. Let us hope that the Minister of Finance speaks to the Minister of Health and gives him the money in recognition of the situation and that he then gets it done, for enough is enough. All of us at some point will rely on that emergency department to save our life or that of a loved one.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:48 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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