Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to discuss this matter in the House but, in doing so, I have to take the opportunity, once again, to update the House on Covid-19, our response to it and its impact on the health service because it very much goes to the heart of how we deliver health services in the coming days, weeks and months.

First, and most importantly, I want to express my sympathy to the family and friends of those who have been lost to Covid-19 throughout this pandemic, and most particularly since we last met in this House to discuss this topic. All of us welcome the days when we hear that there were no losses to this disease recorded and I am very grateful that we had one of those days this week. We all want to see a time where we have many more such days. Despite slowly and steadily reopening our economy and reopening society, thankfully, so far we have not seen a rise in cases, hospitalisations or admissions to ICU. In fact, thankfully, all such numbers continue to fall.

I am also pleased to update the House, as I do each week, on the R-number in relation to the virus. I am pleased to say that the R-number has remained stable again this week. Our best estimates from our modelling team put reproduction numbers in the range of 0.5 to 0.8, according to chairman of the modelling group, and very similar to recent weeks. That will come as good news to everybody in this House.

I should say that the small number of cases makes the reproduction number hard to estimate and the more important number perhaps to monitor in our country at this point in the pandemic is the number of new cases per day and where they are emerging. The average number of cases over the past five days was nine. That average number this day last week was 19. Again, there has been a reduction in the average number of new cases.

Tomorrow, as Members will be aware, the National Public Health Emergency Team will meet to discuss phase 3 and whether it believes it is safe to proceed to phase 3 of our reopening plan. The Government will meet tomorrow afternoon to decide how to proceed. We have all worked so hard to suppress this virus and we look in a strong position to progress to phase 3.

If we progress to phase 3 on Monday, travel restrictions across the country will be lifted. I hope we all take the opportunity to safely explore this beautiful country of ours, help local businesses that have struggled throughout this difficult time and, most importantly, see family again. I am conscious that those who may live in one part of the country and have family in another part have not seen loved ones in so many months. Let us hope next week brings an easing in that regard and a moment of reunion.

We have come through many dark days since this pandemic began. There were days when the fear of this disease was present in every home and every heart in our country and the quietness of our streets and our towns added to the unreality and uncertainty of those days. We have come through those days together but we need to get through the days ahead together. We each now have a greater responsibility to continue with the behaviours that we have all learned to ensure that we do not give this disease any opportunity to come forward again. We must continue to be cautious and clear-sighted about the power of this virus and the damage that it can do if we drop our guard. We do not have a vaccine. We do not have a specific treatment but we have learned how to protect ourselves and, crucially, how to protect others from it. We will, I believe, continue to make safe and steady progress if each day we practise what we now know. We have asked people to take practical public health measures and today, once again, I appeal to people to wear face-coverings on public transport and in enclosed spaces, such as shops, where social distancing is not possible.

Our health service, like every sector of society, will have to operate differently in this new normality. Throughout this pandemic, our GPs, pharmacists, healthcare workers and everybody working right across the health service have shown considerable innovation to continue to provide services in a safe manner. Thousands upon thousands of outpatient appointments are now being carried out in virtual clinics. Over 85,000 outpatient clinics were provided through technology last month alone. Many GP consultations are being conducted remotely. Prescriptions are now being electronically sent to pharmacists. Things I used to ask about in the Department of Health - I was told would take many years - could happen in the space of a couple of days. It is quite incredible that it takes a pandemic. We will need this innovation now more than ever to continue as we navigate our way through this next chapter.

I am pleased that the HSE has today announced its framework document on the resumption of non-Covid care services and given an outline of what the months ahead might look like. Of course, all of it is dependent on the transmission of the virus. The health service faces enormous challenges in the weeks and months ahead and gave an outline of this today.

Covid-19 will have a very significant impact on the delivery of health and social care services and it will require innovative and flexible responses to meet the healthcare needs of the population. It will require: better infection control measures; more and better alternatives to hospitals which cannot be mere lip-service and must be real; transition of service from the hospital to the community; healthcare supports in our nursing homes - the crisis emergency teams that we put in place will need to be the norm and we will need to regularise them as part of our health service - and keeping people in their homes for longer, which cannot be a political slogan or a mantra and will need to be a piece of legislation passed by this House. These are no longer options. They are no longer things that would be nice to do. They will become absolute necessities if we are to continue to provide non-Covid care alongside Covid care and address many of the access challenges we face.

In our hospitals, there will be new operating realities such as: greater use of personal protective equipment, PPE, with the associated delay in donning and doffing of equipment; significant additional time for cleaning of beds, theatres and equipment; all aerosol generating procedures will require enhanced PPE and cleaning between patients, all of which will have an impact on capacity; and patients booked for surgery quite possibly will require to be tested prior to that surgery. The health service we know will be different but we must reconstruct it safely and dynamically, and we must use this opportunity to reform. While many in society want it to go back to business as usual, we do not want to go back to business as usual in the health service. We must use this as an opportunity to create a new health service - the health service we all want.

All of which leads me to Sláintecare. The Sláintecare office in the Department of Health and the HSE board are currently considering the priorities for this year and next in light of the challenges, and perhaps the opportunities, posed by Covid. It is clear that the reforms under the programme will be necessary, now more than ever.

Moving care to the community setting will be a fundamental pillar in the post-Covid world. The community care fund, which this House will know about from the budget, is committed to delivering up to 1,000 front-line staff in the community this year. Specifically, this fund will support initiatives such as the hiring of additional dementia advisers and therapists in the community, new initiatives aimed at reducing waiting lists and scaling up the integration fund projects.

Nobody knows what the next few days will hold politically, but whoever holds this office of Minister of Health must continue to drive the Sláintecare reforms forward. Crucially, the new health regions, the new consultant contract and the community fund all become essential elements that a new Government and this relatively new Oireachtas need to progress quickly while that momentum for reform and a new way of doing things is very much alive and well and being demonstrated on a daily basis in our health service.

As I have said previously, nobody knows what the next few days have in store politically. Therefore, I want to take this opportunity to thank colleagues from across the House for their collaboration throughout the past number of years, particularly the past few months. Many people mocked new politics. Many people mocked the way this Oireachtas worked differently. Let them; that is what commentators can do. I think one of the great things to come out of the previous Oireachtas was a consensus on the policy direction for the health service. We now need to build on that because we are at our best when we work together. Whether it is Sláintecare, the committee on which was led by Deputy Shortall, a referendum which even saw Deputy O'Reilly and I agree on a matter, or the entire House uniting against a well-funded vested interest to support the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018, we are at our best when we work together.

I wish to put on record my thanks to the wider health family, that is, the women and men who work in our GP surgeries, pharmacies, dentists' clinics, primary care centres, nursing homes and hospitals. I thank them for all they do daily and for their care and compassion. When people highlight problems in the health service, they always tell me they are nonetheless so proud of those working there. I have never heard criticism of those working in the health service, because they represent all that is good about the Irish health service. I also thank those who work in the HSE and the Department of Health, especially the Secretary General, Jim Breslin. Whatever happens in the coming days, it has been a privilege and honour to work alongside them throughout recent years.

The next few weeks and months will be a defining time for the health service as we must continue to try to suppress the virus, save lives and keep one another well while, crucially, resuming non-Covid care. There is, in the midst of this time of significant challenge, a time of opportunity to create the world-class health service that the people who get up and go to work every day want to achieve, and that the citizens of this country deserve.

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