The Minister for Health Leo Varadkar has come out in defence of the Government’s recent handing of the current hospital trolley crisis.
Mr Varadkar has openly admitted that the current situation is appalling and inexcusable, but claims the Government is doing all they can to rectify the situation and have come up with a number of different ways to tackle the issue.
Mr Varadkar told reporters: “First of all greater investment in primary care particularly putting in place intervention teams, second thing is greater investment in social care more nursing home places.” “The third, people say we don’t have enough bed capacity, which is true the last government took 1,000 beds out of the hospitals during the boom.”
The Minister for Health added: “I’ve put 300 in, was only able to get an extra 200 staffed but we’ll have the other 100 staffed in the next couple of weeks and then the third thing is the whole process reforms.”
Mr Varadkar’s comments come after a weekend of negotiations took place at the workplace relations commission where they are attempting to prevent any further strike action by emergency department nurses across the country this Thursday.