Mary Henry (Independent)

I congratulate the Minister of State and his officials. I am particularly glad to see Mr. Tom McGinn here today because he and I go back a long way in the health sector.

It might be a good idea to reconsider our views of visits to GPs, so that such visits that do not result in a prescription for antibiotics would not be classified as failures. We are talking all the time about MRSA, but we are not making the dangers involved in the abuse and overuse of antibiotics clear enough to the general public. The Minister of State might consider using this opportunity to bring that matter to public attention. When I discussed this Bill with some members of the public I was asked, "Why shouldn't nurses prescribe you four, five or six antibiotic tablets? Wouldn't that be grand?" That gives an appalling notion of how people think antibiotics should be prescribed.

The provisions of the Bill will be useful for people in palliative care who, for example, will not have to wait for morphine or pethadine to be prescribed because nurses will know what they can do for those patients. That is worthwhile.

I was interested in the Minister of State's explanation regarding paramedical staff who have been trained for pre-hospital care. I hope that action is taken in this area by way of regulation as soon as possible. A pilot study in Donegal involved GPs giving thrombolitic therapy as early as possible and they had much better rates of recovery from heart attacks than in cases where it was not possible to give such medication immediately.

I wish the Minister of State well with the Bill and hope it will be enacted as soon as possible. He should try to launch a publicity campaign about antibiotics, which are serious drugs and should not be taken in a haphazard manner. In addition, ambulance paramedics, who are now highly trained, should have the right to administer thrombolitic drugs in particular.