Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Dr. O'Reilly and Ms Ling that the focus should be on living. They spoke about supporting families but I ask them to outline the type of support provided to families in terms of making decisions. It is horrible for any family to find out that a child is terminally ill. In the context of the multitude of illnesses involved, what level of expertise is available to families? What kind of relationship do palliative care professionals have with general practitioners and public health nurses? I ask the witnesses to elaborate on the issue of overlapping services because ideally, resources in this area should be pooled. The witnesses spoke about the need to upskill nurses but are there enough nurses in the system to do this? I also ask the witnesses to elaborate on the personnel requirements for a quality palliative care system.

Ms Moran said that 60% of terminally ill children die at home and they die from hundreds of different types of conditions. She said that there are no waiting lists for palliative care and that someone will be in the home within 24 hours. That is a fantastic service which provides enormous relief for families. I ask her to elaborate further on the services provided. Reference was made to hands-on care, on-call services, night-time care and so forth. However, Ms Moran said that she also spends a lot of time on the phone, looking for medical cards and so forth, which I found distressing. I ask her to elaborate further on that.