Results 18,821-18,840 of 24,635 for speaker:Mary Harney

Health Service Staff. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: I propose to take Questions Nos. 28 and 79 together. I welcome the recently published report by the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs which includes workforce planning analysis for selected health care occupations, including general practitioners. Among its findings, the report indicates that the current gender distribution in general practice will be reversed in the future with a ratio of...

Health Service Staff. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: Deputy Ó Caoláin is correct that Ireland has a lower GP-population ratio of 58 GPs to 100,000 people when it is 67 to 100,000 in Northern Ireland and the UK, a difference of nine. Notwithstanding that, we also have restrictive work practices with up to 400 doctors not being allowed access to the GMS lists because of an industrial relations agreement. While we want to provide practice...

Health Service Staff. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: The number of trainees has increased from 84 to 120 since 2005, a significant increase. Discussions are under way between the Health Service Executive, the Irish College of General Practitioners, the Irish Medical Organisation and the Department on many of these issues and they will report to me presently. While I do not like using the word "innovative" in an inappropriate way, we need to...

Health Service Staff. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: The restriction on access to the GMS scheme was an agreement with the Irish Medical Organisation, representing general practitioners a long time ago. I have had many young doctors ask me why they cannot have access to the GMS scheme. I put a group together to examine this and it will report to me shortly. I see no justification for restricting access to GMS to any doctor. I acknowledge...

Health Service Staff. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: I spoke earlier about the number of locums working in general practice. I understand that the Irish College of General Practitioners, in conjunction with the HSE, recently published an advertisement seeking expressions of interest from practitioners who would like to qualify to be on the specialist register. The Irish Medical Council requires doctors to be on the specialist register in...

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: I propose to take Questions Nos. 29, 53 and 71 together. The National Treatment Purchase Fund was established to tackle the issue of excessive waiting times for hospital treatment for public patients. The fund has been successful in fulfilling this remit. It has arranged treatment for more than 145,000 patients to date. Public patients now wait an average of 2.6 months for operations,...

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: We should all get on with doing what we are supposed to do, rather than trying to fight battles day and night. The saving of €4 million that I mentioned previously did not relate solely to blood products. I agreed with what the Minister of State, Deputy Moloney, had said on "Prime Time", which was that €4 million could be saved if the hospital worked with St. James's Hospital on blood...

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: Yes. A total of 17.5 physiotherapy posts are filled at the moment. It is a question of the manner in which physiotherapists are allocated. I understand that the person in question will be replaced when she goes on maternity leave. I do not have the figures on scoliosis in my head. I think I had them for an earlier question. I understand that 11 operations were postponed, of which nine...

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: There are a large number of questions there. That is the article I am referring to, from The Argus newspaper, with the headline, "Private care is curtailed", and-----

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: -----the Sinn Féin public representative was critical of that. I very much welcome the contribution from The Argus newspaper to this debate because it displays the hypocrisy that exists. We curtail private care and we are all entitled to access to public hospitals, and that is being criticised.

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: The Deputy cannot have it every way.

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: The Deputy surely does not want us-----

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: Deputy Ó Caoláin can tell his colleague that the public hospital is for all patients.

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: I am pretty sure the Deputy will tell him. I want to clarify what I said regarding the point I was making to Deputy Reilly. The numbers of scoliosis patients' appointments cancelled was 13, not 11, as I said, and I am sorry. Five of those had their appointments immediately rescheduled. I believe Professor Drumm will deal specifically with that issue when he addresses the Oireachtas...

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: Regarding the €20 million, I am satisfied this is true and in fact a minimum figure when four catering departments are combined as well as four HR departments, four payroll systems, four central sterile units, waste management and all of these things. One does not need to have four CEOs, although two directors of nursing are required, one for children and one for adults. There are very...

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: I will leave it to the CEO of the HSE to deal with that when he addresses the committee next week. He is a distinguished paediatrician of world renown who worked in Crumlin hospital and knows it well. He will be addressing all the issues.

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: He is an excellent CEO as well, a man of substantial vision, who had the guts to take on the job and not merely be a hurler on the ditch.

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: One needs to have lots of guts to be a CEO, and vision too. I believe the sum of money allocated within the resource constraints we are living within should be adequate to provide the tertiary services for the sick children from the country and the other services for the children in the Dublin area who require that their secondary care be provided in the three hospitals that exist in the...

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: It is not correct that there have been no additional resources. In my response I said that Dr. Beatrice Nolan was appointed as a consultant haematologist to Crumlin in March. She came from the national tertiary centre at St. James's and relieved the doctor who was working with haemophiliacs and sickle cell patients to allow that other consultant to deal exclusively with sickle cell cases,...

National Treatment Purchase Fund. (1 Jul 2009)

Mary Harney: Contrary to the Deputy's impression, there has been an significant reduction in the number of people working in management and administration since the HSE was established, and I can give him the data on that. Crumlin hospital has had an increase of 18% in medical and dental staff and 29% in nursing staff. Extra people provide extra services, so when the Deputy says it goes on pay, that is...