A local TD has described to the Dail how a surgeon at Sligo University Hospital was forced to walk up and down wards to find enough staff to conduct emergency surgery on a 6 year old boy.
Sligo-Leitrim Sinn Fein Deputy Martin Kenny addressed the Minister for Health in Dail Eireann yesterday evening during a debate on the opposition motion to Increase Capacity in the Health Service.
The Sinn Fein deputy described how a constituent contacted him following a medical emergency with her son, that saw the boy suffering from a burst appendix.
Addressing Minister Donnelly, the local TD says the boy was forced to wait hours at both the out of hours GP service and subsequently at the SUH Emergency Department.
Speaking in the Dail this week, Deputy Martin described the incident at Sligo University Hospital:
"Finally it was recognised that he needed to go to the emergency department, sent there, waited from six o'clock in the evening until 11:30 at night to get an operation where he had a perforated appendix. The one surgeon on call had to hunt up and down the hospital to get a surgical team together to carry out that operation and the family have said how grateful they are to that surgeon for his efforts because they saved the child's life. But the mother says here that this begs the question what would have happened if they didn't get a team together or the one surgeon on call was already performing surgery on another patient".
