Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 11 December 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues

Photo of John BrassilJohn Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, Mr. Reid's synopsis of how to deal with the entry point crisis in emergency departments is identical to what the Sláintecare report came up with. The primary focus is the treatment of patients elsewhere in the community. The question is how quickly we can make that happen. I welcome Mr. Reid's inclusion of a bigger input from the pharmacy community, with which I agree. I take this opportunity to recognise that the proposed cuts to pharmacy funding are no longer going ahead, for which I thank the Minister and acknowledge his work in the area. I would add the use of electronic records in emergency departments to fast-track patients, monitor waiting times etc. to Mr. Reid's synopsis.

Our health budget of over €17 billion is up there among developed countries, as it is a high spend per capita. Based on his six months in the job, does Mr. Reid think it possible to start getting value for the money we are spending? Cataract operations are still being carried out in the North of Ireland on a regular basis, for example. Buses go up there from Kerry and Cork. I send patients up there on public transport and they are seen within a number of weeks. Yet, every time I submit a query to the HSE about a cataract operation for a constituent, I receive the standard reply that the waiting list is 18 to 24 months. Surely there is a better way of doing this. We give that money back to these patients, so it is coming out of the same pot. It is quicker and more convenient for a patient in the far south of Ireland to travel up to Belfast to get a cataract procedure done. I cannot see any reason why the system in this country cannot deal with that.

Mr. Reid also spoke about delayed discharges-----

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