Results 38,001-38,020 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: On tracing the short answer is "Yes". The HSE informs me it now has capability in place to contact trace up to 1,500 new cases per day within a 24-hour period. On the basis that yesterday we had just north of 300 new cases - and hopefully the current measures will continue to have an effect - right now the HSE has the capacity it needs. What I want to focus on though, is not just the...

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

Stephen Donnelly: I will get the Senator an exact response to that by the end of today.

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: Dublin is falling en masseat 13% relative to the rest of the country so it is not falling as fast. There are two areas in particular. The south west is flatlining but obviously it should be falling given that we are at level 5 and, as the Deputy has said, the northside is actually on the increase.It was discussed earlier on. The HSE will look at deploying more mobile testing units. We...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Hospital Funding (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I took a close look at this when I was going over the Deputy's question yesterday. I asked the very same question, which is if the hospital has the sixth highest level of inpatients but the 12th highest budget, what is the rationale? Is it that patients are being short-changed? The simple answer is "No". The Deputy knows well that in comparing budgets for hospitals, we must look at...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Hospital Funding (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy. We both know St. James's and nearly every other hospital are different. The work going on at St. James's per patient is highly complex and really expensive in all the ways we know. The right comparison would be activity-based costing. I am more than happy to discuss with the Deputy how much Letterkenny hospital is getting for the procedures it performs and the service...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: HSE Staff (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I am afraid I do not have details in this regard with me as the issue was not mentioned in the question. The Deputy raised a report of the total number of staff being lower, which I looked into because I was very perplexed by it myself. It turns out that the total number of hours being worked when expressed as whole-time equivalent staff had, in fact, increased quite significantly.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: HSE Staff (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: Yes, but what the Deputy and I both want to see is faster recruitment. As I said in the House earlier, there is a lot of opportunity to improve recruitment processes. When the Deputy and I joined nurses and midwives on the picket line last year, they were not talking about pay increases but about safe staffing levels. I hope that, as the number of staff increases in accordance with the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: HSE Staff (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I will answer the last point first, as it is an issue I have looked into. The HSE has explicitly stated that it is not targeting healthcare professionals in nursing homes. It has, however, stated that it has its own ambitious hiring targets and that it cannot stop people from nursing homes applying. To refer to something I believe I have heard the Deputy mention, one way to keep healthcare...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Hospital Funding (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: Letterkenny University Hospital, LUH, is a model 3 hospital, operating as part of the Saolta University Health Care Group. There were 24,141 inpatients in LUH in 2019 and 9,731 inpatients in the first two quarters of this year. The budget allocation for Letterkenny University Hospital is €145.9 million. This is the 12th highest annual budget allocation for a public hospital in 2020....

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Nursing Education (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputies for their contributions. To pick up on the wider point, Deputy Boyd Barrett is absolutely right that nurses, midwives and HCAs throughout the system are doing extraordinary work. We often, rightly, talk about the amazing work teachers have done to make our schools safe places for children to be. There is not enough talk about the equivalent work nurses and midwives are...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Nursing Education (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I assure the Deputies that I hear what they are saying. We all recognise the work of our qualified nursing and midwifery professionals throughout the country, in community healthcare and in the hospital system. Do students nurses make a valuable contribution while they are on their educational placements? Damn right they do and they work extremely hard. Those students are part of a...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: HSE Staff (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I have not forgotten the offer the Deputy made previously and which he undertook to make good if we get the numbers to 10,000 by the end of the winter plan.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: HSE Staff (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy. The winter plan was launched by the HSE on 24 September. It targets approximately 12,522 additional posts over the period of the plan, to the end of April next year. Budget 2021 provides for the retention of these posts on a permanent basis, plus an additional 3,426 whole-time equivalent posts, funding a total increase of approximately 15,738 positions. To date in...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Health Promotion (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: It is not lost on me that two men are discussing the future of women's healthcare. It must be pushed and funded. I might be wrong, but I do not believe that if men had babies that Holles Street, the Coombe or the Rotunda or other maternity services around the country would have the same level of investment as they have now. They would be state-of-the-art, brand new, custom-built, beautiful...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Health Promotion (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: The task force is focused on women's health and building capacity in the system for women's health, including mental health, but is not working specifically in response to Covid, for which the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, is leading a lot of initiatives. There was funding in parallel with the winter plan and a wellness initiative was launched last week. There has been a huge increase...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Nursing Education (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I propose to take Questions Nos. 89, 97, 117 and 121 together. In my earlier response to Deputy Cullinane, I dealt with some of the issues raised by the Deputies, and I would now like to deal with the additional matters. Concerning fourth year nursing and midwifery students, the HSE continues to fund the internship employment of those students who are on rostered work placements. This...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Children's Hospital (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I ask the Deputy to repeat that last bit.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Children's Hospital (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I cannot quote all the Standing Orders, but I imagine that the Deputy's question is miles out of order, nonetheless-----

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Children's Hospital (3 Nov 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I will answer. I think it would be ruled out of order by the Chair, but I have no problem answering the question at all. My understanding is that it was not available and hence I was looking for it. It was a critical contract because it was moving away from what is still the existing GP contract. It was essentially adding to the existing GP contract but in an important way - in ways...