10 January 2023
By Bryan Smyth
bryan@TheCork.ie
Labour Party TD for Cork East, Seán Sherlock has tonight called for the rapid expansion of a paramedic treatment pilot scheme and for the fast tracking of the building works at Mallow General Hospital in order to relieve severe overcrowding pressures on Cork hospitals.
File photo of Sean Sherlock TD
Deputy Sherlock said:
“Level two hospitals such as Mallow and Ennis have tremendous capacity to deal with a greater volume of acute medical interventions. The way to keep trolley numbers down and manageable is by opening up more beds in these hospitals and rotating more medical consultants out from CUH to deal with winter related illnesses. This could be done on a seasonal basis. The over-dependence on tertiary hospitals like CUH to deal with everything is proving futile, when level two hospitals such as Mallow General could and should be triaging more patients. They must become the first port of call for ambulatory care. Protocols can be further developed to provide for inter hospital transfers on a needs-be basis.”
He added: “The pilot scheme currently in operation where paramedics are able to make a decision to bring patients back to Mallow General when they have been patients there already must be expanded immediately to deal with the current overcrowding experienced in Cork city based hospitals.”
