Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We all appreciate that Covid-19 has thrown up some unprecedented challenges for our health service and staff and it most certainly did so for our patients in vulnerable positions and their families. Covid-19 arriving on this island has seen great demands on our people, including behavioural and habitual changes to what we have long been accustomed. That should be recognised by this House.

I will focus on the discontinuing of all visitors to our hospitals, including maternity hospitals, and nursing homes or care facilities. In Clare and across the State we have heard heartbreaking stories of loved ones facing difficult information or diagnoses, including diagnoses of cancer, on their own, not having their family with them for support or even as another ear to receive the difficult information.

People with disabilities are living in nursing homes where they should not be but they cannot receive visitors. Visitation could be facilitated and we could allow these visits on compassionate and critical grounds with proper planning, personal protective equipment and procedures in place. This cannot be a blanket decision and one size will not fit all when we are dealing with people's health and care.

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