Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 12 October 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution

Crisis Pregnancy and Primary Care: Irish College of General Practitioners

2:00 pm

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

I thank both witnesses for coming here today. My questions will follow on from what has been said by other speakers.

Is there any other aspect of health care that GPs deal in where they cannot refer properly? As the delegation has outlined, GPs do not have to look at the Constitution for any other aspect. The presentation contained a case study. What about a woman who has a clotting disorder but is otherwise fit and healthy? Obviously, a relatively simple, safe procedure such as a medically induced abortion or surgical abortion in the early stages would then have an added level of complexity. I ask the witnesses, as medical people, to tease out the matter. Can they explain how the barrier to GPs being unable to refer and send a woman carrying a photocopied chart under her arm that could be left on a plane affects such a case? People often go to their doctors with something on their minds but completely forget to say what is wrong with them due to the stress of the situation.

The process of teasing out information may be affected and the information may not be disseminated properly to the practitioner abroad, for whatever reason. I am not referring to suicide but rather to people with particular mental health needs.

As medical people, how do the witnesses feel about sending somebody on complex drugs for schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder, for example, off on their own on a plane or a boat? In those circumstances, what are the challenges for the witnesses professionally? Will they tease some of those issues out? Another issue concerns women with reduced immunity because of autoimmune diseases or who are on steroids, with the added risk of infection as a result.

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