Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 24 April 2024
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health
Health Services for Persons with Lung Fibrosis: Discussion
Ms Maureen O'Donnell:
On the postcode lottery, if people go to their GP and the GP does not know about lung fibrosis, which many of them would not, they may not be able to do the right tests. They may not know there is a specialist care centre out they could get referred to. As a result, that is where we are finding patients are ending up taking a long time to get diagnosed and have issued once they are diagnosed. They are not getting the care they need. The specialist centres, in contrast to that, are able to provide, as Dr. Hurley was talking about, the team of people able to get patients the information they need, which can, as he was saying, potentially extend their lives beyond that median statistic I was talking about earlier. Going back to the idea of the clinical programme and what that does, it creates a more equitable system whereby there is clarity for the GPs when they see this coming in about what this could be and what they need to do to be able to get the people properly diagnosed and treated. Dr. Hurley may wish to add to that.
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