Ireland's children are suffering needlessly through a lack of measures that address inequalities, writes MICHELLE McDONAGH
IRELAND HAS much of the knowledge needed to reduce inequalities and improve the health and wellbeing of young people, but often fails to put this into practice, a conference in Galway heard.
Dr Sean Denyer, director of the HSE Programme of Action for Children, was critical of where Ireland stood in relation to children and young people compared with other countries.
“We are at a crossroads in a way. Compared to other wealthy countries, Ireland is in the middle in terms of child and adolescent health. The Scandinavian countries and Canada are at the good end and the US, the UK and Australia are where we would not want to be, but where we are heading.
“We have a choice; we can head down the road of countries we do not see as good examples of child and adolescent health or go with countries offering models we would like to be part of.”
Health inequalities among children was the focus of NUI Galway’s 13th Annual Health Promotion Research Centre conference which opened last Thursday.
Up to 200 academics, policymakers, practitioners and young people attended the event called Closing the Gap in Child and Adolescent Health: the Settings Approach.
Dr Denyer told the conference that Ireland was doing very badly in terms of child poverty compared with its EU counterparts, with one in 14 children living in consistent poverty.
“Countries with similar levels of wealth are doing a lot better than us in terms of child poverty so it’s not just about wealth, it’s about decisions on where to make investments.” He said Ireland had probably 40 key documents relating to children and young people and something like 3,000 recommendations, but it was not good at putting such recommendations into practice.
Some very good strategies such as the parent health record, which allows parents and professionals to keep an up-to-date record of their child’s vaccinations and so on, were started as pilot programmes, but never expanded nationally, explained Dr Denyer.
Dr Helen McAvoy, senior policy Officer at the Institute of Public Health in Ireland, highlighted the urgent need for data to direct policy that would both protect the health and wellbeing of children living in poverty and reduce inequalities in child health.
She said data on health inequalities must be considered in the context of Ireland’s high levels of child poverty.
“Even in peak times of economic development in Ireland, she pointed out that children remained the age group most at risk of poverty.
“In Ireland, the economic downturn is already precipitating reductions in the financial supports available to parents through unemployment, reductions in wages and government allowances, as well as cuts in family support and children’s services,” she said.
Conference organiser Dr Saoirse Nic Gabhainn of the Health Promotion Research Centre at NUI Galway said research had shown that there were startling differences in health among young people in this country.
She said children were the victims of inequality not just in the health services but across all settings including families, communities and schools.