Results 27,841-27,860 of 49,836 for speaker:Stephen Donnelly
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: It was not that she indicated she was about to resign; she informed me that she had resigned.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: I did not ask her that, no.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: It is unclear who was resisting, but I am more than happy to acknowledge my part in the pausing of regionalisation. I was asked by the HSE, given the unprecedented pressures due to Covid, if we could pause the implementation of regionalisation and I agreed to that. My view was, and is, that we needed an absolutely focused HSE over the past 18 months. To the HSE's credit, it has-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: That is certainly my view and, I believe, a view Paul Reid and the Secretary General would have-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: He asked for regionalisation to be paused during the pandemic, yes.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: I can try to find an exact date. From memory, it was reasonably early on in my tenure that the request was put to me, and I agreed with it.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: I am not sure who they may be. I would be happy to be told and to have that conversation with them. While we have paused the implementation, Bob Patterson and his team in the Sláintecare programme office have been doing significant work on detailed design, consultation and so forth in the background. Now, as we are transitioning out of the Covid phase, it is hoped, our intention is to...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: I am unaware where these provocateurs are. Certainly, I have not seen any resistance. I have discussed this directly with the chair of the HSE, Ciarán Devane, Paul Reid and the management team in the Department of Health. No one has ever put it to me that regionalisation is something we should not do. What they did put to me - and I fully agree with them - was that it is something we...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: I do not know if all were of that opinion, but the Secretary General, the chief executive, the chair of the board and I were. We viewed, and I still view, embarking on a whole-scale restructuring of the health system in the middle of a pandemic as a very foolish and very high-risk thing to do.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: I do not recall if I did.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: At the time there was an acting Secretary General in place, and he may have, but I do not recall any such announcement.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: I would need a bit more-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: I am sorry but I cannot add anything to that.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: The Deputy is asking me to speculate. It is a pretty reasonable question but not one I can answer. I do not know what others may have thought of the matter. All I can tell the Deputy is that the decision was taken for operational reasons to manage risk. I believe that it was absolutely the right decision and that the results of that are seen in how the HSE has responded with the...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: I have not encountered any resistance. I am not saying there is not any - there may well be some - but, if there is, it has not come across my desk. The reality is that plans were advanced, implementation was paused for the reasons we have discussed, and the detailed planning continued and continues now. I have set up an advisory committee to provide those of us involved with an external...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: The implementation group is a wide group of stakeholders. If we are talking about creating a single management structure for the patient pathway from the home through to the acute, from cradle to grave as it were, there are many stakeholders. There is the Sláintecare programme team, which has been doing much of the policy work. There are myself and the Cabinet, senior officials in the...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: I can, and I will. First, if I may, I will refute the premise of the question slightly. There is an implication that progress is not being made, that there is no commitment and that the commitment is-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: Let me be very clear about this. The sole focus of this Government, the Department of Health and the HSE in healthcare is universal healthcare. That is it. There are three elements to universal healthcare. One is affordability, and we are moving on that. We are also moving on access and clinical quality. That is what defines universal healthcare. If we were meeting now and half of the...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: I am conscious that when one has the great privilege of being a Minister people probably do not share their resistance with one. They tend to say "Yes". Now, they may go off and not do everything that one would like to see done-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Implementation of Sláintecare: Discussion (6 Oct 2021)
Stephen Donnelly: -----but I am very cognisant of the fact that I am in an unusual position. Whatever resistance there may be, it typically would not be aired in front a Minister. Let us be clear about that. Would there have been and is there resistance within the system to large-scale programmes of reform, including this? Of course, there will be. If we were engaged in large-scale reform in the...