Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That was promised in June and I am not exaggerating the impact it is having on a young girl in my constituency, Grace O'Malley. I cannot put into words how upset her mother is. The latest update which they received last week from Mona Baker, chief executive officer of Temple Street Children's University Hospital, is that because Grace has a spinal rod in her back, she is a complex case and that a new service will have to be put in place to administer the drug and that an application for funding for this service was made for inclusion in budget 2020. They are distraught. They are so upset and believe there is no light at the end of the tunnel. When I sought an update on the matter from the Minister for Health a couple of weeks ago, his response was that when he had given the go-ahead for the drug to be made available, he was not aware that a new team would be required in the hospitals to administer it. To say that is incompetent is putting it mildly. I cannot understand how the Minister did not know what was required to deliver the drug. Surely, he would have been told in his consultations with the doctors in the hospitals what was required.

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