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Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has pledged to bury the ghosts of the Irish health system’s “dark past” regarding its treatment of Irish women, “particularly women’s reproductive health”.
Mr Donnelly was speaking on Friday as he opened a women’s health hub, including ambulatory gynaecological, menopause and fertility clinics at Nenagh Hospital, north Tipperary.
The €1.4 million hub, which aims to “improve access and wait times for gynaecological patients”, is one of a range of measures aimed at improving women’s healthcare, the Minster said.
However, despite pledging to tackle decades of shortfalls in female reproductive care, Mr Donnelly appeared moved to dampen expectations arising out of a statement his department made last April when it stated he planned to introduce State-funding for costly in vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedures in 2023.
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Addressing Nenagh Hospital staff, Mr Donnelly said that while he would be “making the case for public funding for IVF, it’s really expensive, I can’t make any promises”.
Later, in an unrelated press conference, the Minister was asked if he could assure women that the HSE home births service in the midwest region was safe after it was temporarily suspended following the death of first-time mother Laura Liston in Co Limerick on June 5th. In response he extended his “deepest sympathies” to Ms Liston’s family and said “it’s an awful tragedy, it’s just heartbreaking, and I think what the HSE is doing now is the right thing”.
“They have temporarily stopped the service, they’re putting in place a team with very serious expertise to look at the protocols, to look at the case and to assure themselves and, therefore, be able to assure women in the region that the service has everything it needs to have, and I want to see that report,” he said.
Mr Donnelly said any “lessons to be learned, or recommendations in terms of changing protocols or changing models of care” will be “rolled out nationally”.
Despite the temporary suspension of the home birth service, governed by the UL Hospitals Group, expectant mothers in the midwest seeking HSE governed home births can still access services by registering with maternity hospitals outside of Limerick, however, the University Maternity Hospital Limerick will continue to accommodate home birth patients in the event of emergencies.
Mr Donnelly said there would be no reopening of previously closed emergency departments (EDs) in Clare or north Tipperary, despite acknowledging “unacceptable” levels of patient overcrowding and delays in the ED at University Hospital Limerick (UHL).
“The clinical view on this is unambiguous, and the doctors would say no. And the reason they would say no is because if you’ve got something seriously wrong with you, and you go into a small hospital — Nenagh has 60 beds — and that doesn’t have all the specialities, and maybe you need one of those specialities, and it’s not there, now you’re in trouble, because now they have to get you to the bigger hospital anyway, and time matters in these cases.”
As well as additional beds and resources, local injury clinics will have to “take on more of the load” to alleviate pressure on the Limerick ED, he said.
Mr Donnelly said he has “directed the HSE to significantly increase the number of emergency medicine consultants” at UHL as the Limerick ED is currently struggling with “only eight ED consultants and there should probably be about 16 so they are not even close to the numbers they need”.
The Minster said he has directed the HSE to fast-track these additional consultant posts which he said can normally take between “12 to 18 months”.
“What I want to see in UHL is senior decision-makers on the floor, 16 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said.
The lack of a seven-day, full-time, non-emergency diagnostic service in the hospital, which staff claim can result in patients blocking beds for days while they wait for scans, is also exacerbating pressure on the hospital.
“In Limerick, and in a lot of emergency departments, if you present late on a Friday night, and you need a scan, there may be no diagnostics available to you until the Monday morning, or indeed the Tuesday by the time they’ve cleared the backlog on the Monday, and the solution to that is run the diagnostic machines over the weekend, so that requires more resourcing again,” said the Minister.
Mr Donnelly said the Government was not considering a return of mandatory mask wearing in shops, on public transport and in schools, despite acknowledging that the country is now “in the middle of another Covid surge” which will put further pressure on hospitals.
He said there has been a “multifold increase” in hospital cases, jumping from 167 to almost 700 in the last three to four weeks. However, the true number of total cases in the country is not known, “because the level of testing and tracing has been stepped back on public health advice”.
The Minister appealed to those over 65, of which “less than half have taken the second booster”, to get the vaccination.
He said the Government “can’t predict what’s going to come in the coming weeks and months” but that Cabinet was “not looking at moving back to things being mandatory”.
Despite this, Mr Donnelly said most people “have stopped” following the public health advice, and he appealed to the public “if you’re on public transport, or you’re in an indoor crowded area, or around more susceptible people, please do wear the masks”.