Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will make a couple of observations. I begin by welcoming the fact that there was an announcement this morning relating to the drug Kaftrio, which is a life-changing drug and one of the issues the committee raised. The committee received a lot of correspondence on it and realised the importance of it being approved.

One of the things that came up at the committee was that the slowness of change in that area, particularly the approval of new drugs, was something that probably needs to be looked at. Mr. Gloster's opening statement mentioned the positive work health organisations are doing throughout our State, and it is important we remind ourselves all of the time about that. He mentioned the fact that people are living longer, the low mortality rate among children and the challenges that creates.

We know that in our hospital system there has been quite an increase in the number of people who are part of the older population having to stay longer in the hospital. That is a challenge in itself. The population is growing which again is a challenge. I welcome the fact that we heard that Mr. Gloster has taken on his role seriously and is starting to meet key players in his organisation and particularly meeting many of the unions. We have had the unions here and they talked in terms of the challenges they face as regards bullying at work, the problems of racial abuse, assaults on staff and on patients and so on, so there is the importance of fixing that.

Some of those at the meeting spoke about the pandemic payment. It is small money given the overall package of money that we are spending. It was mentioned time and again that it was a goodwill payment and many organisations are still waiting for that payment. The committee will look at this as a possible body of work for us in future. I ask Mr. Gloster whether there is anything that can be done. Fórsa said it was looking for a simple meeting with the HSE and that it had not had a formal meeting on the payment. This is something that could be done straight away. It has created frustration and resentment. It was a goodwill payment. It was not a huge payment given the amount of work that people did but it was recognition of that work. When people are left out it has an impact on morale and how staff feel.

The biggest challenge we are facing has been mentioned by most contributors this morning. This is the slowness of change and how cumbersome change is. We have heard about the importance of establishing the regional health authorities. They could be key. Everyone who comes before the committee speaks about the slowness of change. Where positive things are happening in the health service we do not replicate them. Mr. Gloster has mentioned meetings with the hospital CEOs. The committee has heard from witnesses who have come before it how important Pathfinder is and the number of hours and lives it saves. The Reeves day surgery centre that was developed by Tallaght University Hospital is a model that is working and clearly needs to be replicated. How can we build on these positive models? I presume this is what the meetings with the CEOs of the hospitals will be about. Where things are working in the system how can they be improved?