Results 3,501-3,520 of 24,635 for speaker:Mary Harney

Written Answers — Health Service Staff: Health Service Staff (13 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: I propose to take Questions Nos. 75 and 76 together. The Deputy's question relates to human resource management issues within the Health Service Executive. As this is a matter for the Executive under the Health Act 2004, my Department has requested the parliamentary affairs division of the executive to arrange to have this matter investigated and to have a reply issued directly to the Deputy.

Written Answers — Medical Cards: Medical Cards (13 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: The Deputy's question relates to the management and delivery of health and personal social services, which are the responsibility of the Health Service Executive, HSE, under the Health Act 2004. The determination of eligibility of applications for a medical card is a matter by legislation for the HSE. Accordingly, my Department has requested the parliamentary affairs division of the executive...

Accident and Emergency Services. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: The Health Service Executive is advancing the implementation of a series of measures to improve the delivery of accident and emergency services. These measures take a wide ranging approach and are aimed at improving access to accident and emergency services, improving patient flows through accident and emergency departments, freeing up acute beds and providing appropriate longer term care for...

Accident and Emergency Services. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: Question No. 92 mainly concerns the issue of accident and emergency units, a matter that has been a priority for me. We have worked successfully on initiatives that will have a lasting and not just a temporary impact. That is the reason the number of patients on trolleys is down by 25% in Dublin and 22% nationally since last April. With regard to the elderly — on which a parliamentary...

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: In its service plan for 2005 the national treatment purchase fund set a target of having treatment arranged for 16,000 patients. Up to the end of September a total of 12,000 patients were treated. Under the fund more than 35,000 patients have been treated to date and waiting times have been significantly reduced. The majority of these patients have had their treatment provided in private...

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: I corrected the report of the €600 taxi fare on the day it appeared. Many inaccuracies have been reported in recent weeks, including one that somebody turned up for surgery and it was cancelled and another that we had changed the medical guidelines for assessing terminally ill patients. Both were untrue, as is this report. When the treatment purchase fund arranges treatments for people,...

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: The guidelines used for assessing terminally ill patients for medical cards are the guidelines that were used when Deputy Howlin or Deputy Noonan were Ministers for Health and Children or even the former Minister, Mr. Brendan Corish, if the Deputy wants to go back that far. The guidelines have been used for the past 30 years without change and will not change.

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: It knows that.

Hospital Services. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: I express my sincere sympathies to the family of the late Mr. Patrick Walsh, RIP, who died tragically at Monaghan General Hospital last Friday. His death should not have happened. I have been informed that an intensive care bed was vacant in Cavan General Hospital when Mr. Walsh needed to be transferred. The circumstances surrounding this tragedy require thorough investigation. Mr. Declan...

Hospital Services. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: As I said in my initial response, it is clear that the death of Mr. Patrick Walsh should not have happened. The inquiry I referred to previously will have to consider why the intensive care bed that was available at Cavan General Hospital was not made available to Mr. Walsh.

Hospital Services. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: I look forward to receiving the outcome of the inquiry quickly as it is clear that many questions need to be answered. The issue of giving on-call or off-call status to certain hospital services, about which I was specifically asked, is a matter for the Health Service Executive. It is a question of patient safety rather than of resources. Deputy Connolly said that a group of surgeons called...

Hospital Services. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland was also involved. Patient safety must be of paramount importance.

Hospital Services. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: We now have a new organisation. We have received the opinions of representatives of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland who are experts in this area. There are hospitals in Drogheda, Dundalk, Cavan, Monaghan and Navan. The HSE must decide on the configuration of hospitals in that region. It will decide on what will happen when and where. Patient safety must come first above all else. It...

Hospital Services. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: The consultants were represented on the steering group.

Hospital Services. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: The group agreed unanimously on its report.

Hospital Accommodation. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: An Agreed Programme for Government includes a commitment to expand public hospital beds and is in line with the commitment in the health strategy to increase total acute hospital bed capacity by 3,000 by 2011. Substantial investment in additional bed capacity has already taken place in acute hospitals. Funding has been provided to open an additional 900 inpatient beds in public acute...

Hospital Accommodation. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: Beds will be delivered if they are necessary and not for the sake of it. The analysis done by Dr. Mary Codd, based on demographics, suggested we need 3,000 additional beds by 2011. Over 800 of these were provided up to October of this year. Professor Drumm made the valid comment that if we had appropriate facilities for the elderly, we would immediately release a substantial number of beds. I...

Hospital Accommodation. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: Yes.

Hospital Accommodation. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: I do not accept that. With regard to the question of where the beds will be located, we considered the private activity in public hospitals. For example, last year some 46% of elective surgery at Tallaght Hospital was carried out on private patients. The beds will be located in Waterford, Limerick, where plans are fairly advanced, and in Dublin at St. James's Hospital, Beaumont Hospital and...

MRSA Incidence. (18 Oct 2005)

Mary Harney: There were 445 reported cases of MRSA blood-stream infection in 2002, 480 cases in 2003 and 550 cases in 2004. The figure for the first six months of 2005 is 314 cases. The increase in the reported number of cases of MRSA in recent years is mainly due to increased surveillance as a result of more laboratories participating in the reporting process. It is difficult to identify the number of...