Results 14,841-14,860 of 45,539 for speaker:Simon Harris
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: Being very honest and not wanting to withhold information, that would very much depend on a call the Minister for Finance will make between now and budget day.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: There are a number of questions there from Deputy Donnelly. First, and I see him regularly making this point, I am not building private health facilities. I am building rooms under the current rules that Fianna Fáil was happy with in government, which allow those rooms to be used for private facilities. The Deputy talks about the consultants a lot. I would like him to go and talk to...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: There are 3.3 million outpatient appointments every single year. We are doing more in the health service every year. Our population over the age of 65 is growing. Our birth rate is growing. The complexity of cases is growing. More and more people are now being seen quicker in many aspects in respect of many of our waiting lists, but we do have real pinch points in outpatients. I do not...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: We will do Sinn Féin's record in the Northern Ireland health service now in a minute.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: Then Sinn Féin walked off the pitch.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: I will have to come back to the Deputy with the recruitment versus vacancies ratio unless my HSE colleagues have it. I do not have it to hand.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: The Deputy might even know the answer to the question she asked.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: I will follow up on that. The Deputy is right and again she knows the answer to this question. The 60-bed modular unit is not going to be open for this winter. I am not putting it forward as a solution to this winter. I am just putting it forward as a commitment to increasing capacity in the mid-west. What we are going to do this winter is a perfectly reasonable question. Two things...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: I am more than happy to do it. One of them is in the room and the other one I am happy to meet as well.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: I will ask Dr. Henry to respond.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: I would like to see the clinical lead for abortion appointed as a matter of urgency.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: That is a priority. On Rosalie home, I do not know whether Ms O'Connor is best placed to speak about it.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: Anybody who decides to build a private facility does so on his or her own initiative. Obviously, there is a record of the State sometimes striking agreements and the like, largely through the NTPF, but that is independent of me. It should be independent of me. Any decision to build a private facility, insofar as it adds capacity, is good in the short term.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: I am not talking about any specific units because I do not have a role in that regard, but we do use private capacity, funded for public patients, while building up public capacity.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: I have no involvement in it.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: I do, yes.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: We will take the last question first because it is a simple question in a way.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: When we get the report of the groups-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: I think we will have to take guidance from the expert group. Instinctively I agree with Deputy Kelly that there should not be a gap. There were a couple of questions in Deputy Kelly's contribution. On RCOG, I truthfully do not have the breakdown of how many meetings have taken place. If I did have them I do not feel we should be getting into that granular detail. I would rather allow a...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Meeting on Health Issues: Discussion (2 Oct 2019)
Simon Harris: My understanding is that the meetings commenced the week of the 23rd and will take approximately eight weeks to complete. We will receive the aggregate report at the end of October. I do not have any more data-----