Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said that governance and management issues within the HSE need to be examined in light of record levels of overcrowding.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly updated the Cabinet on Wednesday on the situation inside emergency departments and said it was improving.
Speaking at a press conference after the meeting, Mr Martin said he believed the HSE did a good job during the Covid-19 pandemic and that lessons had to be taken from that experience.
He said, however, that governance within the health service will have to be looked at.
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“I think we need to evaluate and look at governance issues and management issues within the overall edifice of the HSE. It is not acceptable for people to be in the situation in which they have found themselves.”
Whatever you want to blame us for, I don’t think you can blame us for all those things happening in other jurisdictions,
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the Government could not be blamed for what is a wave of infection affecting the entire Northern Hemisphere.
“What we are seeing is a wave of illness affecting the entire Northern Hemisphere in a very long time,” he said. “That is without taking into account that people’s immunity is not as strong as it would have been because of the period of social isolation. We see Northern Ireland struggling, we see Britain struggling. I have never seen the NHS under so much pressure.”
He said emergency departments in Germany are also under pressure while French president Emmanuel Macron has talked of wanting “to end the endless crisis in health.”
“Whatever you want to blame us for, I don’t think you can blame us for all those things happening in other jurisdictions,” said Mr Varadkar. “So this is something that is very serious, a very big wave of infection that is affecting all of the Northern Hemisphere. And we are no different.
“A lot has been done in recent years, 1,000 extra beds added to the hospital system just in the past three years, the biggest budgets for health ever paid for by a strong economy.
“Being faced by such a wave of illness has posed difficulties for even the best resourced services in Europe.”
