Health

I fear I begin to sound like a broken record when it comes to funding for Waterford and in particular how all of our institutions have been starved on a minimum diet of investment and spending.

There are many issues with services at UHW including 24/7 Cardiac Care. These stem from a lack of investment in the hospital and it's services. One only has to recall the lengths Pathologists had to go to to try and get improved Mortuary Services (Google it) to understand how difficult, unfair and simply disgraceful the treatment and funding of our hospital was and continues to be.

To illustrate this let me highlight a table from the South East Economic Monitor of December 2023 which details the funding across Level 4 hospitals in the State.

With just 6.5% more A&E presentations than Waterford (69,928 to 74.532)), UHL - the next worst funded regional Level 4 hospital - has 30% more annual budget funding and almost 63% more staff. But the fact is that doesn't mean UHL is over-funded: it means UHW is UNDER FUNDED. The extent of that underfunding is probably impossible to determine as in 2024, there is still no means of knowing how or why those annual budget amounts are calculated. We know they go up and down at budget time, but the base comparisons remain. University Hospital Waterford is by far the most under-funded hospital in the country across almost every metric. Not that you hear it much in national media as the staff, to their credit, keep their heads in the game, work hard - arguably harder than in any other Level 4 hospital in the country - and just get on with it.

The problem is the base assumption that Waterford gets the lowest funding. Why? The only answer you can get is that it's 'historic'.

If elected I will fight to have the budgeting for hospitals done in a transparent and accountable manner. You cannot have a situation where citizens in one part of the country are disadvantaged from another with no reasons as to why or how. It is simply untenable for the HSE and the Department of Health to be allowed to continue treating Waterford in this manner.

To read the full Social Democrats Health policy, click here.