Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for attending. I am a community pharmacist and I am also the daughter of an infectious diseases nurse. I am sure she may have worked with them in Cherry Orchard back in the day. I come from a family of health care professionals. As someone who works in the community and who was among the first batch of pharmacists trained for the initial roll-out of the influenza vaccine, I was shocked when I entered the Dáil last year at the difference between what I perceived to be the understanding of vaccination and immunisation, and the emails and discussions I encountered around this vaccine on becoming a public representative. There was a gap between my understanding of people's understanding and what goes on in reality. There is a major gap between those of us who have been privileged enough to have been educated to a high level or who are scientists and who have been given that information, and getting that information into the public domain. The remarks on collective memory were helpful. My mother told me that I nearly died from measles as a child. People forget that these are serious illnesses. Awareness must be increased that risks should not be taken with measles and we have a body of work to do in this regard.

The falling take-up rate for the HPV vaccine is concerning and I have commented on this publicly. The Irish Cancer Society says 40 people would die, 100 would require cancer treatment and 1,000 would need treatment for precancerous cells annually if not for the vaccine. I operate a pharmacy close to St. Luke's Hospital in Rathgar. I have seen the 40 year old woman with two children at her ankles with stage 4 cancer. I recall the resistance to the vaccine when it came out first, but we have overcome that barrier. After clean water, this vaccine is the second greatest success in public health ever but people on the ground do not get that. They think public representatives or health professionals are dealing with it.

Regarding meningococcal B, there is a perception that it leads to death. I dealt with somebody whose child is deaf as a result of contracting this illness. We need to get the message out that these diseases can not only lead to death, but to a range of preventable conditions. I cannot imagine what it would be like as a parent not to have vaccinated my children and for them to die or become deaf or blind as a result of my decision about their health.

Senator Burke referred to major influencers, which sparked something in my mind about Jade Goody. The take-up rate of the HPV vaccine increased following her tragic death. Perhaps we need to examine who are the influencers. I am sure I do not influence many 15 year olds. Maybe I do and maybe Deputy Durkan does, but we need to get the people that young people listen to involved. When somebody such as Avril Lavigne has something wrong with her, they are all listening to her. We need to get somebody whom young people look up to and who is on the right side of science and facts.

Regarding barriers to access, Dr. Corcoran mentioned trusted health care professionals such as GPs and practice nurses. Pharmacists are open to this. I even had people working in hospitals coming into the pharmacy late at night because they did not have to queue when filling their prescription. It works well in the community pharmacy setting. Perhaps it is an aversion to the white coats, the doctor's surgery or being in a waiting room with other people.

We generally know the patients. We do not get busloads of people coming from elsewhere. They are generally the people we know from mass, the shop or SuperValu. We know these people and they trust us. We can leave them sitting there and chat with them while we are going about our business. The community pharmacy is a very good way of delivering this service. It is different for an elderly patient who is going to the GP anyway but for a healthy person, perhaps a nurse, it is very handy to nip into the community pharmacy. We have to do our very best to deal with this unmet need where people working in the delivery of health care are not being vaccinated, for example, a pregnant nurse in ICU. We need to get the message out there. Pregnant women have a difficulty with having vaccinations. One can understand that when considering things in the past. I was pregnant around the time of the swine flu vaccination in 2009. I think I have been pregnant the whole time since then, but at that time I was pregnant.