Debate contribution: Altnagelvin Hospital: Access to Accident and Emergency
Debate contribution by Mr Maolíosa McHugh on .
- MLA
- Mr Maolíosa McHugh
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 21 January 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Adjournment
- Heading
- Altnagelvin Hospital: Access to Accident and Emergency
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4750008
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I am an MLA who lives in Castlederg, and the hinterland includes the parish of Aghyaran, the Corgarys and Meenakeeran, which goes up almost to Barnesmore Gap. The residents must travel 40 miles to get to the nearest hospital and emergency department, which is at Altnagelvin.
I will comment on the experience of two families. In the first case, an elderly woman, who had come through an operation for cancer, was referred to A&E by her doctor and went there. She sat there for three nights — three nights — on a chair. I am often surprised at some of the statistics for waiting times. She spent three nights on a chair. So critical was her condition that her family took her home because she was in greater need of rest than she was of seeing the doctor in Altnagelvin. In the second case, the family had a similar experience, but they stayed the three days. The man's wife carried food into him in the waiting room in Altnagelvin. He described the hospital as being like something from a Third World country. Security was needed for those who were in the waiting room, given some of the antics that were happening there. Food was carried in to that man for three days. He was then admitted and operated on immediately, and he had stents inserted. Had his family taken him home, as the other family did, he could have died on the street on them. It is as simple as that. That is the kind of pressure that we are experiencing at Altnagelvin, and it is imperative that we react to it. I welcome the suggestions by my colleague to the Minister on the short-term measures that may be adopted. We know what the long-term solution is, but money has to be found to implement the short-term measures. It is not good enough for the Minister to say to me, as he did yesterday, that I am living in a utopian world because I desire and hope for better medical provision for all residents of the north-west.
363 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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