Results 36,501-36,520 of 49,836 for speaker:Stephen Donnelly

Written Answers — Department of Health: Hospital Waiting Lists (30 Mar 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: It is recognised that waiting times for many scheduled appointments and procedures were too long before and have been made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Department of Health continues to work with the HSE and the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) to identify ways to improve access to care. On the 7th March, I published the 2023 Waiting List Action Plan, which is the next stage of...

Written Answers — Department of Health: Health Services (30 Mar 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: The Government and I are fully committed to improving genetics services in Ireland, including at Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) at Crumlin. One of the key ambitions of the National Strategy for Accelerating Genetics and Genomics Medicine in Ireland, launched in December 2022, is to build a strong national genetics service. This will be a patient and family-centred service that can be...

Written Answers — Department of Health: Hospital Procedures (30 Mar 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: As this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.

Written Answers — Department of Health: Medical Cards (30 Mar 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: As this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: General Practitioner Services (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy for the question. As we are all aware, universal healthcare is something we are all signed up to through Sláintecare and are committed to very strongly in the programme for Government, and this is a core element of that. One of the three tests of universal healthcare is that care is either free or affordable for everybody who needs to use it. As the Deputy and...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: General Practitioner Services (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy for his reply and I do not disagree with his analysis at all. It is frustrating to me that we did not bring it in this month. The Deputy is absolutely correct in that this was the plan and that was what we budgeted for and what we wanted to achieve. The GP community asked us to wait and the choice was to proceed, which we could have done in spite of that, or to give the...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: General Practitioner Services (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: Yes, it will. The Deputy will be aware that we are kicking off a strategic review of GP practice. It is based on a report that was published not long ago on the future of general practice. We accept that report. A team is being put in place now and I have appointed three GPs to the team to ensure that the voice of the doctor is very much front and centre on that. Essentially, the...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Abortion Services (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy for the question. The answer is "Yes, very shortly". As he will be aware, the review of the operation of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act commenced in line with statutory commitments in December 2021, a bit over a year ago. The purpose of the review was to assess the effectiveness of the operation of the Act. It comprised two phases. The first...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Abortion Services (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: The report will be available to the Government and then to everybody else very shortly. It is a good report and it is very detailed. It is a very useful report. It has identified various things that work well and various things that we need to improve at an operational level. There are also some legislative recommendations in it. I have no doubt but that the health committee will take...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Abortion Services (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: I am prohibited from giving the Deputy an exact date; suffice it to say that it will be made available very shortly. He can read into that what he wants.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Abortion Services (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: The Deputy can read into that what he wants. It will be made available very shortly. Let us wait until we have the report before we get into operational and legislative recommendations. Regardless of the report, which is a good one, the core focus for me and the HSE concerning the provision of services is increasing the number of maternity hospitals that are providing services. That...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Health Strategies (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: The short answer is "Yes, and a consolidated plan". I fully agree. The Deputy and I have discussed this several times. We already have several multi-annual plans in place. The core infrastructural plan is the 2018 capacity review, which gives us targets, agreed by everyone in the House, for acute beds, critical care beds, nursing home beds, elective capacity and so forth. The Deputy will...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Health Strategies (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: I agree with all that. We have a beds plan and a hospital building plan so the multi-annual bits and pieces are in place, and we also have the community care plan. The enhanced community care programme is the multi-annual plan and is really going from strength to strength. I am opening another three primary care centres tomorrow. That is going really well. We have community care, beds...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Health Strategies (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: Between the Deputy and the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Waterford is well represented in Dáil Éireann. It is also well represented in Seanad Éireann. Let us not lose sight of the fact that over the past three years, we have seen an historic expansion of capacity. More beds have been added than at any time in a very long time, there has been more access to...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Vaccination Programme (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: I acknowledge the Deputy’s very long-standing work on this issue. My Department and the HSE work continuously to monitor and improve patient safety and reduce incidents of harm. The Government recently approved the establishment of an interdepartmental working group to examine the rising cost of health-related claims and consider mechanisms to reduce costs. The group will examine...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Vaccination Programme (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: I fully accept and appreciate the Deputy’s frustration. As he noted, he has been talking about this for more than 20 years. I fully accept that. He will be aware that in mid-June 2018, the Government received a comprehensive report from Mr. Justice Charles Meenan on clinical negligence. My understanding is that it was intended in early 2020 to do exactly what the Deputy is calling...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Vaccination Programme (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: That is a partial characterisation. A lot of the work required to do this was undertaken. On foot of a request from my Department, the Health Research Board did an extensive international evidence review. It looked at Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand, the US and the UK.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Vaccination Programme (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: That was a legitimate part of the work, which was submitted to my predecessor in March 2019. The very clear advice I have is that the Department was fully intent on doing this. It is complex. Sensitive policy decisions have to be made and extensive legal advice has to be obtained. I accept the Deputy’s bona fides on this and I agree we need this scheme. At this point, the only...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Assisted Human Reproduction (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: I propose to take Questions Nos. 5 and 57 together. I thank the Deputy. This matter is also important to me and we are pushing very hard on it. The assisted human reproduction, AHR, legislation would have been passed and in operation by now. With broad political agreement, we paused it to ensure we could bring in some substantial amendments on Committee Stage around surrogacy. In...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Assisted Human Reproduction (20 Apr 2023)

Stephen Donnelly: I would love to see that happen. It depends on the time the Joint Committee on Health is able to give over to the Bill. I am conscious the committee has a huge amount of work on its plate but hopefully it will give over the time. I will get it over to it for its review shortly. We need to do the retrospective element as part of the legislation. It is really important. Like Deputy...