Results 5,681-5,700 of 49,836 for speaker:Stephen Donnelly
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: The medical and scientific communities deal with matters like this every day and, please God, most of the time they get them right. There is evidence on this and it is not just anecdotal. The evidence is from around the world. Is there something about this chronic condition that is different and makes it harder for the standard analytical approach taken by these bodies to recognise it?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: It is very puzzling.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: We also deal with orphan drugs quite a bit and orphan drugs, by definition, are for rare diseases. The system has no issue in dealing with the concept of rare diseases. With other diseases and infections, I have never heard the State say that as it is rare, the people who have it actually do not have it and the condition does not exist. Being rare is not cited in any other case so it is...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: I have a question on testing and treatment. There are four clinicians for this in Ireland so does the State fund the best testing that is currently available? If a clinician decides a patient has chronic Lyme disease and he or she should be treated with whatever the right course of longer-term antibiotics is, would testing and ongoing treatment be currently funded by the State?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: I thank all the delegates for attending and for their time. I would like to walk through the process from the patient's perspective and try to understand where the disagreements are between the testimony we heard earlier today and the one we are hearing now and the difference between the various studies the delegates are citing and those cited earlier today. It has been suggested that...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: So it would not surprise Dr. Sheehan. It was put to us that in some cases, the lack of awareness among general practitioners is leading to misdiagnosis, which I understand can lead to a longer-term infection because the infection is not being treated straight away.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: Is the point on awareness-raising reasonable?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: If, for example, a GP sees a patient and has received the requisite training and experience to be aware of the condition, the first course of action is to make a clinical diagnosis and do a two-stage blood test. Is that correct?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: The standard treatment is a course of antibiotics for three to four weeks.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: There does not seem to be much disagreement on short-term or acute episodes if we consider what the delegates say and what we heard earlier. It sounds like there is an opportunity in creating a better awareness among GPs, particularly in place like Portumna where the condition is more prevalent. Moving to the longer term, it is my understanding the delegates recognise that the infection can...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: It could be a year or however long after the initial episode; therefore, the view is there could still be an infection and it might still be appropriate to treat the infection with antibiotics.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: Great.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: Okay. There seems to be agreement that the disease exists and that short-term antibiotics work in most cases. There is an opportunity to improve the level of awareness, including through GP training and raising patient awareness. In the longer term an infection could still be present or re-emerged, but it may be treated with antibiotics. It might be the right case, as we are talking about...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: Absolutely. It could come from a wide range of explanations. I want to understand whether one such explanation could still be Lyme disease. The doctor or consultant may make a clinical diagnosis, with many tests to narrow the cause. Do the delegates accept that one of the possibilities could be long-term Lyme disease infection?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: Sure. I have heard very little so far that contradicts previous statements. There might be a different emphasis, but we are accepting short and long-term possibilities, the potential for long-term infection and that treatment with antibiotics can work on long-term infections. We are also accepting that the cause might be something else entirely. What about long-term treatment with...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: When Dr. Sheehan states there is no benefit, is it a case of zero benefit or a low percentage?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Lyme Disease: Discussion (28 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: When the regression analysis is made, there is zero benefit in using long-term antibiotics.
- Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Report Stage (Resumed) (29 Nov 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: I did not intend to speak on the amendment either and I will be brief. This country has a dark and shameful history in its control of women, their health and their reproductive rights. It all comes down to controlling women, their bodies and their reproductive health. It has gone on for a long time and we are still finding out some dark things about our past. Whether or not it is the...
- Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: Here is the 60-second version. Whether it is well meaning or not, the amendment is technically flawed. It refers to pregnancies covered by section 10, which concerns notification. This means that when it refers to sections 11, 12 and 13, we have no idea those are the ones it means. The amendment would cause an awful lot of confusion. It provides for a period of two days for this, 48...
- Written Answers — Department of Health: Primary Care Services Provision (4 Dec 2018)
Stephen Donnelly: 350. To ask the Minister for Health the primary care teams in place in community healthcare organisation, CHO 1; and the number of staff employed in each by position and-or grade, that is, general practitioner, nurse and therapy posts in tabular form. [50320/18]