Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for her reply. The difficulty with the reply is that I do not see the sense of urgency about this in the HSE. As the Minister of State says in her reply, the HSE is setting up working groups for clinics over the coming weeks. As I have pointed out, it is only when these clinics are operational that referral pathways will be put in place for GPs. The Minister of State is advising people to go to their GPs but the GPs are not being given the tools or the referral pathways for those particular patients. Today, 114,500 people are affected, and that number is increasing. This has to take on a greater level of urgency.

The emerging consensus in the literature in this area is the importance of those multidisciplinary rehabilitative teams for post-Covid patients, as the Minister of State has outlined. Post-Covid rehabilitation will assume increasing importance as the surge of patients is discharged from hospital, placing additional burdens on our health system. The rehabilitative needs of patients are varied and multifaceted. Clinics should offer these multidisciplinary assessments. The emerging literature emphasises the importance of the assessment of post-acute Covid patients after the discharge and of preparedness for the appropriate clinical rehabilitation pathways. Such initial multidisciplinary assessments for long Covid may play a role in reducing unnecessary chest X-rays and clinic appointments and help to focus the type of follow-up care that is needed.

Surely, with limited hospital appointment capacity, we must try to provide focused, targeted support to these patients.

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