24/7 Cardiac Care at UHW given go-live date for the beginning of July
Minister Butler guaranteed the service will be place for the beginning of July. Negotiations with unions are continuing. Photo: Joe Evans
Waterford TD, Government Chief Whip and Minister for Mental Health Mary Butler has announced 24/7 cardiac services at University Hospital Waterford will begin operations for the first week of July.
The current service operates 8 am-8 pm seven days a week. The upgraded service will treat approximately 60-80 more patients suffering life-threatening, severe heart attacks.
Speaking to the at the new SETU glassworks building, Minister Butler said that numerous meetings had been held between HSE CEO Bernard Gloster, Minister for Health Jennifer Carrol MacNeill and UHW CEO Ben O’Sullivan.
“We knew we had got funding for two interventionist cardiologists…More staff, full-time equivalents have been signed up and I don’t have permission to say (staff numbers) at the moment, there's talks with the unions at the moment.
“I have never stopped working to get this over the line, and I acknowledge and I accept that so many other people work on it as well, and most importantly, the community.
“That last piece, as I said, of the jigsaw, was going from eight in the night to eight in the morning. We needed the additional staff. The staff have now been provided.
“We needed the interventionist cardiologist. They have been provided. The funding has been provided.”
24/7 cardiac care has been one of the defining issues on Waterford’s political agenda.
Campaigns for the introduction of the service began through advocacy groups like the South East Patient Advocacy Group and Hand on Heart campaign more than a decade ago.
In the run-up to the 2016 general election, Micheál Martin and Mary Butler stood outside UHW with a poster reading: “Fianna Fáil will secure 24/7 Cardiac Care in UHW.”
It was one of her key policy platforms on her first successful election to the Dáil in 2016.
Since Minister Butler’s accession, progress has often been stunted.
In 2018, a second Cath lab was built in UHW. The service progressed from a weekday-only service in 2025.
Stumbling blocks included the 2016 Herity Report, which disputed the necessity for a 24/7 cardiac care service for UHW and said it was "not a top investment priority” for Government.
The deaths of Thomas Power in 2017 and Una McDermott in 2018 piled pressure on the Government to deliver the service.
Total figures for staffing and beds for the 24/7 service still remain unclear. Six interventional cardiologists will be working in UHW at the time of the go-live date. 19.5 whole-time equivalent staff positions currently work at the 8-8 service.
A parliamentary question submitted by Independent Tipperary South TD Mattie McGrath querying the Minister for Health on the staffing provisions for 24/7 cardiac care at UHW has yet to be answered.
In response to a different query from Deputy McGrath, the HSE provided the figures for 24/7 cardiac care in University Hospital Limerick.
Four interventional cardiologists are on 37 hour contracts, while two are on 18.5 hours. 15 Cardiac physiologists are in post and 2.5 Whole Time Equivalent Cardiac Radiologists are assigned to the cath lab on a weekly basis.
There are two ECG technicians and 12 cardiac nurses.
