Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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What role can our guests play in ensuring that the situation about which I was informed will not be repeated? A person presented to a hospital and the clinician laughed in her face and told her to go home. Subsequently, she attended the surgery of a sympathetic GP who asked whether it could be Lyme disease. The GP performed the test and the result was positive. Is there a role our guests could play to ensure that does not happen and that clinicians treat patients seriously? The issue is when the relationship between clinician and patient breaks down. When a patient suggests that he or she might have a condition, what is the simplest way forward? How can we ensure that patients are at the centre of the treatment? I think that is the way of quelling any of these issues. The professionals have the expertise and nobody is denying that. It is a matter of filling the information gaps in order to ensure that patients are treated in the way they should be treated.