Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is some very positive news there. I had a meeting with Professor Donal O'Shea who is an endocrinologist and his colleagues who are bariatrics specialists. They made a very compelling presentation on exactly the issues the Chair raised. They referenced people heading to other countries, including Türkiye and other places, and coming back to Ireland with some significant complications. I thought they framed the outdated view of this service very well. Their view is that maybe the service never had the funding it needed because there was a slightly condescending view that suggested this was something people should be able to deal with themselves and they should not require surgical intervention. The example they gave was that it is like telling someone who has been diagnosed with skin cancer that they should wear sun cream. That is great but entirely misses the point. The person needs clinical care.

On the back of that meeting, we fully funded the bariatric and obesity strategy through the waiting list action plan, including significant recurrent funding to the point I said there would be no way Professor O'Shea would be able to spend the money he was looking for.

On the back of that meeting we fully funded the bariatric and obesity strategy through the waiting list action plan, including significant recurrent funding, to the point where I said there would be no way Dr. O'Shea would be able to spend the money he was looking for as it takes longer than that to hire in a new team. He assured me he had people all over the country ready to go and all it needed was the funding. I was sceptical, but it turns out he was correct. They have done amazing work this year. I cannot remember the exact amount, but from memory we have put in between €6 million and €6.5 million in recurrent funding for this year. They are now rolling out exactly what the Chair says we need. I fully agree, which is why we fund it.

Within the waiting list action plan we have identified three clinical areas - there are many priorities, but three get reported on at every task force meeting - which are spinal orthopaedics, gynaecology and bariatrics. What we should see, as Dr. O'Shea and his team roll out this service, is patients like the one referenced starting to get quicker access. Nobody could stand over that case, or any case of someone waiting years for access to bariatrics. I acknowledge the Chair's ongoing work in this area. I have a note that 703 additional activities have been delivered as of the end of September 2023. That is a combination of outpatient, inpatient, day case and so forth. Progress is being made for reasons the Chair has laid out.