Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Since the arrival of Covid into our country a clear and present danger has existed not just to the lives of our elderly and vulnerable, but also to the social and economic cohesion of our State. Covid-19 is largely a killer of the elderly and those with underlying medical vulnerabilities. Thankfully our knowledge of dealing with and treating this illness has advanced greatly over the past six months. Despite its dangers, Covid must not be allowed to sideline the many other significant healthcare areas in which patients need support, particularly cancer, trauma, disability, mental health and chronic disease.

The recent Government announcements of increased funding for the winter plan and the overall healthcare sector include the addition of €600 million to fund more front-line staff to develop additional ICU and HDU bed capacity, to provide additional hospital beds and to ramp up to 4.7 million additional home care support hours, which are greatly welcomed. While the funding is welcomed, along with these resources, health service managers must seriously look at how they can reorganise and innovate to deliver increased efficiency in hospital throughput. In our acute care hospitals, the issues of Covid planning pathways must be reviewed with respect to daily case scheduling. We need innovative thinking such as expanding diagnostic services, particularly in scanning and scoping to address the backlog of cancer patients awaiting access to care and treatment. We need increased radiology, diagnostic scoping and biopsies to address the significant waiting times which are emerging in symptomatic and prostate cancer services.

Medical needs extend to my constituency of Waterford, where, as the Minister of State will know, waiting times for diagnostic angiograms have extended up to 12 months again. We must consider the use of the National Treatment Purchase Fund in both public and private hospital settings to support extending these service opportunities. Our first priority must continue to be to secure the health of our elderly, particularly those in residential accommodation. We need to ensure ongoing randomised testing of healthcare workers and strict visitor infection protocols particularly over the winter months.

Rapid diagnostic tests, though shunned by NPHET to date have shown a pathway to increasing random testing elsewhere in the world, and it is to be hoped we will see their use authorised here as soon as possible. The announcement of the additional 700 swabbers and contact tracers is welcome given that is should allow health staff to return to their jobs where they are so badly needed.

The focus in the winter plan on keeping people with physical health needs out of hospital is welcome. However, patients with ongoing mental health and disability issues appear to have been bypassed in the plan as no money has been provided to address their needs or how they can be cared for in the community. This is an area of healthcare that must receive additional priority and allocation of resources. The Government has given us a winter healthcare plan, and although it is extensive in comparison to previous years, the health care needs of our nation have never been greater. We must continue to rely on the truly great legions of healthcare workers in our State who look after our citizens as well as they can. We must persevere in calling all in our community to continue adhering to all of the Covid rules that we have learned in recent months so that, despite intermittent cluster outbreaks and lockdowns as months elapse, we can repair our economy and health services and, it is hoped, steer a path from this global pandemic.

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