Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Minister for Health, I thank Senator O'Loughlin for raising the matter. I hope I can provide some clarity, although I am not sure if I can provide all the Senator seeks. I will try to come back to the Senator on anything that I cannot clarify.

The Health Service Executive provides an extensive range of aids and appliances to individuals living with different medical conditions to help them enjoy a greater quality of life than may otherwise be the case. Many of those products are provided under the community funded schemes.

At the outset, it is important that I say that the new proposed procedure in respect of hair loss was for cancer provision only and had no impact on non-cancer related alopecia patients.

As part of the HSE's improvement programme for the community funded schemes, a HSE national advisory group had examined the provision of an allowance for cancer treatment related hair loss. The HSE had recently published a new national procedure for the provision of an allowance for cancer treatment related hair loss. The HSE advises that the aim of that new procedure is to improve access and ensure patients with cancer treatment related hair loss who like wigs, hairpieces or other hair loss solutions receive a standardised allowance no matter where they live, precisely as the Senator has said.

The HSE has advised that awareness of a significant variation in the practice of funding hair loss allowances across the HSE means that a standardised approach should be implemented, as the Senator has already stated she agrees with.

The level of the allowance provided for in the proposed new standard operating procedure was set at €600. The procedure and the allowance level allocated were to be subject to periodic review.

Upon learning of the proposed changes, the Minister instructed the HSE to ensure that no patient, either currently availing of the scheme or accessing it in the future, would be at any financial loss as a result of the proposed changes. The HSE has since communicated to each CHO advising it to revert to the pre-existing level of contributions to patients in respect of hair loss until such time as the new procedures can be reviewed in terms of the proposed allowances to be provided in the interim until it is all dealt with and sorted out.

CHOs were also instructed to contact any member of the public who received an email or communication advising him or her of the new procedure to inform him or her that it has been withdrawn. This communication also reiterated that no person should be disadvantaged in any way in the intervening period.

The Minister for Health welcomes this clarification to all CHOs. The Minister also wants to ensure that the necessary supports are put in place so that every person has the same level of access to appropriate healthcare no matter where they live in Ireland.I am not sure if that answer addresses the alopecia question precisely, but it is important that Senator O'Loughlin has raised this issue as it perhaps provides some clarity in respect of confusion on the cancer-related piece.