Results 11,901-11,920 of 49,836 for speaker:Stephen Donnelly

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I will ask. The Deputy asked about the percentages per workplace. The answer is that this information exists and I will get it to the committee. The one addendum that the public health teams always give me when I ask them these exact questions is that the systems can trace a person's profession and where they have it, but the virus could be in a person's system for two weeks before he or...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: They have that data, but it can be difficult to establish where anyone gets it. Knowing that one person got it from a family member or at work or when the person got a haircut or was in a restaurant over a two-week period can be difficult to ascertain.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: As with the Deputy, I have been contacted by many people in this situation and there have been some really sad stories. For some people it is frustrating that mums, dads and partners cannot get in for scans. We have also been made aware, as I am sure the Deputy has, of really traumatic situations where things have gone wrong during birth and the partners cannot get in then either, at a time...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: The issue regarding primary medical certificates is something that has been raised. I have raised it with the Department and I am looking for a report on it. I will revert back to the Deputy with detail because, as she says, there are complex legalities to it but it has to be sorted out very quickly. On HIQA inspections in disability services, I will ask HIQA to come back to me with the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I undertake, at a minimum, to provide the Deputy with a briefing note this week on that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I ask the Minister, Deputy Butler, to come in on that question.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy. The point he is making essentially concerns whether we are going to get to enough ICU beds by the end of next year. No, we are not. It has to be a multi-year program. We have worked closely with the HSE to determine what is possible. For example, the HSE had planned to introduce some beds in quarter 1 of 2022. We worked with them to say, "No, we will get them in in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I would have to see how it calculated the figure of 579 but the numbers I have seen are not a million miles away from that. In terms of the figures I have been talking to people about, it is about how we can get up to about 500 ICU beds. I guess it depends on time. I could look at the detail of the ICU situation. I am confident that we are putting in as many next year as the system feels...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I asked yesterday, in anticipation that the Deputy might raise this, for the most up-to-date note from the Department to be able to share it with him today.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I will send the note to the Deputy after the meeting. The scientific review has been completed and it advises that we should put the controlled access programme in place for patients with one of the three conditions of which the Deputy will be aware. The expert reference group then developed clinical guidelines for the programme. The impact of an amendment to Schedule 1 of the misuse of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: Not on that one.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: No, not all of that. This is an update on that. I will furnish the Deputy with a detailed note.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Senator. The experience as outlined by his constituent is just not satisfactory at all. Nobody should have to go through that. If I run out of time, I will provide a more detailed written answer. As to the emergency department and the maternity unit, the project design team has requested an assessment of the feasibility, as the Senator said, of the inclusion of a women and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Senator very much for her question. I will start by recognising the work that student nurses are doing. They are on educational placements as part of their degree programmes, are working damn hard and are doing it in a healthcare system where everyone is working damn hard. The system is under enormous pressure. In the first wave of the pandemic, when there was real fear and we...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: On the second issue, I will need to take a look and revert to the Deputy, so I will respond just to the first one now. I hope she will have seen in the budget a serious commitment to Sláintecare. There are many different factors, one of which is capacity. We just need more of everything and there is a big commitment in that regard. The second is configuration, so there will be a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: That is fair. Let me instead say "post Covid".

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: Yes, the budgets are the key.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I will hand over to the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, shortly. The first point to make is that it is not three Departments, it is one Department. It is the Department of Health and we have mental health, Healthy Ireland, disability, homelessness and addiction and many other areas. The Ministers of State, Deputies Feighan, Rabbitte and Butler, and I work together and there is joined-up...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on Covid-19 and Review of Budget 2021: Minister for Health (4 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: It is a really important question. It cuts to the heart of the matter because it is not just about the out-of-hours service. It is about general practice and making sure general practice is fully supported, funded, invested in and configured properly right across the country, including in the Shannon area and, obviously, in Clare. There are a few things we are doing in terms of Covid. I...