Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 27 February 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children

Rare Diseases Day: Discussion

10:45 am

Photo of Dan NevilleDan Neville (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in today. I have special knowledge of rare diseases, although I do not want to say any more about it. I think Mr. Watt may know.

I would like to speak about the inequality of technical knowledge of the medical profession about the treatment of rare diseases. We had witnesses before the committee recently speaking about Lyme disease, and they had extreme difficulty in getting the medical profession recognise their condition. I brought it up in the Dáil last week with the Minister for Health, and he was very forthcoming about the condition and the need for identification and treatment.

I remember more than 20 years ago when I was campaigning to have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, recognised, it took at least five years to get any part of the psychiatric profession even to accept it was a condition. They put it down to bad parenting. My point is that there is an inconsistency among various medical general practitioners because of their lack of exposure to rare diseases.

Have the witnesses identified any rare mental health diseases? They might address that question.

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