Jennifer Carroll MacNeill
Dún Laoghaire · Fine Gael · Ireland
“It will be provided by a registered pharmacist in accordance with the relevant pharmacy legislation, including this Bill. Section 2 of the Bill makes various amendments to the Irish Medicines Board Act and the Pharmacy Act. Those amendments ensure that whole legislative framework is cross-referenced correctly.”
“We now have a common conditions service where you can go to a pharmacy instead of a GP to get a diagnosis and prescription for eight basic conditions like conjunctivitis or urinary tract infections - the kind of things that just come up in people's lives all the time. We would like to expand more and more what pharmacies can do.”
“In particular, the board will be focusing on aspects of menstrual health, on aspects of postpartum mental health, particularly in traumatic birth cases, on something we have overlooked for some time, which is endometriosis, on women who are finding it difficult to access services in different ways, as Senator Harmon suggested, and on more…”
“The extension to 41- to 45-year-olds could possibly be €5 million to €8 million because there are statistically fewer women in that bracket trying to conceive, so the numbers are higher. It really is a question of funding. I remind Senators that they have also asked me to fund various other programmes.”
“That followed confirmation from the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland and the Health Products Regulatory Authority that the patch and ring are classified as medicinal products, not medical devices. That is just a correction there.”
“That is why we have put so much money into supporting them in different ways, including the conclusion of a €50 million increase to their fees and to provide for the opportunity to raise private funds in this way, for example, the common conditions service. I want to see pharmacists doing more.”
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“In that respect, we, first and foremost, try to address many of those psychological, anxiety and mental health needs young children have. The debate has swung as though people are trying to treat them in one way when, in fact, they are trying to treat anxiety and psychological distress in the first instance, as is completely appropriate. Nevertheless, the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and I are determined to ensure that a comprehensive, appropriate and integrated gender healthcare service is available for those individuals who require it. The Government is committed to ensuring that people of all ages have access to appropriate pathways to gender healthcare for them at the time and space they are in and that they are treated with kindness, dignity and compassion.”
“Along with the Minister of State and the Government more broadly, I recognise that gender diversity is absolutely part of the human experience and that gender-diverse people should be respected in their identities and in their right to express themselves. They may choose to transition from the gender assigned to them at birth to being recognised and identified as another gender. Of course that is what the Act we are celebrating ten years of does today. They may also explore their gender and socially or legally transition without needing healthcare services. Some people, including children and young people, may experience gender dysphoria, which refers to the psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one's sex assigned at birth and one's gender identity.”
“Notwithstanding the divisiveness in the debate and our desire to set that aside, I recognise that we have an awful lot of work to do on healthcare. I have worked with LGBT Ireland, TENI, BeLonG To and Spunout for many years. I was the vice chair of the Fine Gael LGBTI group. I stand alongside the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, who is a leading advocate for change in the approach to healthcare to bring about much more inclusive, compassionate and respectful healthcare provision for gender-diverse people. Let me be very clear, even if I do not get to all of the points in my speech, that the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and I are standing together to work in a very practical and pragmatic way to try to re-situate the balance, the dynamic and the compassion in healthcare for gender-diverse people.”
“We all know the sheer nonsense that a man would dress up as a woman and come into a changing room for the purposes of attacking me, as though with all of the conversations we have had about femicide in this room we ever needed a man to dress up to attack a woman. Did you ever hear such nonsense? Did you ever have examples of it from any time since the Gender Recognition Act was passed? A different movement seeped in somehow in 2021 and 2022 and changed the narrative. It made the narrative cruel for trans people and other people. I have never understood why that happened. I always regretted that such attitudes seeped over here. I hope we can stand together to take steps that help to seep that away and remove any of that divisiveness from the House, as Labour Party Deputies have said.”
“I sat beside Deputy Frank Feighan and recalled having a debate with him before I became Minister when he was a Minister of State in the Department of Health. The debate in question took place in March 2022. I asked him what we were doing to support transgender people in terms of healthcare. I decried in particular the divisive debate that seemed to be seeping across from the United Kingdom at that time. We could see it coming. I recall speaking with trans people prior to that debate, who told me about the fearful things that were being touted at that time, namely that people would come into changing rooms, for example, and dress up as men.”
“I sincerely thank Deputies from the Labour Party for raising this important issue. It is an area on which I and the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, are placing a strong and deliberate focus. As I listen to Deputies from the Labour Party going back over the history of this, I recall that they did so in partnership with Fine Gael and that we stood together to introduce many important social changes. In many respects, it might have been slightly harder for Fine Gael to do that with the Labour Party. A broad balance that changed in society achieved the changes we all wanted to make, which brought about a much more compassionate society for women and LGBT people. I am very proud of that work.”
“It does not have the worst hospital trolley presentations and that is because of the work of the people in Limerick and because of the 96 beds. My priority is to deliver more beds as quickly as possible and to put in all the supporting architecture to make sure we can bring people out of Limerick. We are genuinely committed to this. We will prioritise A and B coming up to Christmas and we will all look together at the opportunities for option C in the new year. The Senator is right that I did not say those things at the meeting yesterday; I was not correctly quoted. We will look at option C intelligently and in a paced way in the new year when we have done what HIQA has asked us to do for the people of the mid-west, our commitment being in respect of option A and B and putting real teeth to that.”
“I am invested in this on a day-to-day basis. Over the weekend, I get a text at 8 a.m., 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. every single day of my weekend every single weekend so that I can track exactly where every hospital is and so I can see if a hospital is going into difficulty. Am I committed? I promise Senators that I am. I know exactly what is going on to the best that I can in the 29 hospitals at any given time. Last weekend, at one point I think there were 57 people on trolleys in 29 hospitals and that increased over Sunday night into Monday and Monday night into Tuesday. So, I really do know. Limerick is doing really comparatively well. It might not feel like that for people who are in Limerick today. It has the seventh longest wait times of all the hospitals but not the longest wait time.”
“I ask for all Senators' support that when we put in planning applications they do their best to make sure we minimise objections to those applications so that we can get the best out of the site that we can, that we push as hard as we can on that site, that we deliver an option B as close as possible to that and that we look intelligently with all of the best information we have about how to approach the option C construct and how we do that with optimal site location, optimal clinical location and optimal hospital size, recognising that we are learning more and more about better hospital efficiency over time from our international experience and from our own learning here. There is a real commitment to the people of the mid-west from the hospital management, from the people who are working there, from everybody here and from me.”
“It is as much about the service delivery in those different hospitals to try to do everything we can to avoid the need for people to come to UHL unless they are seriously unwell or have been in a trauma situation. However, for routine treatment, for outpatient appointments, for elective processes, we do not want them to be in Limerick in the same way that we do not want them to be in other acute hospitals. We are across this. We have an urgent bed capacity issue.”
“I do that because I recognise that there are some hospitals like St. Vincent's and Cork which have had an up-and-down experience over the last month where they are just not landing it and just not getting it right persistently. Some other hospitals might be under a flu pressure or an RSV pressure for a day or two and then recover. They are all slightly different issues. It helps me track the delayed transfers of care. It helps me track what is happening in the community and the beds the patients are going to. One of the really important investments we are making is the additional investment in Ennis and Nenagh. We have 81 beds in Ennis and our plan is to put in another 48, a 50% capacity increase. We have 62 in Nenagh and an additional 27 coming. I think St. John's has 95 with an additional 42 coming.”
“This is as a consequence of two things. First is the greatly improved processes and second is the new bed block. We need more beds, there is no question about that. However, the other hospitals have more to do and they do not have the same presentation pressures, demographic pressures or capacity pressures. It is important to put that in context. In particular, I compliment the management there on the extraordinary work they do. Am I committed to it? Every morning at 11 o'clock, there is a trolley call with the CEO and other senior management of the HSE, the regional executive officers and hospital managers - it depends on who is there. Owing to Cabinet meetings and everything else, just twice this week I joined the call in the background and listened to the specific nuances going on in each hospital.”
“The trend is persistently lower. I have to end this idea that Limerick is the worst hospital in terms of its emergency department. Throughout November - I will happily call it out - Galway, St. Vincent's at the edge of my constituency in Dublin, and Cork have been persistently worse in their hospital trolley figures than Limerick and they do not have the same bed issues that Limerick has. For the benefit of Senators from the region I will outline the figures. Yesterday, Wednesday, at 8 a.m. there were 28 people on trolleys in Limerick on the HSE figure. There were 42 in Galway. On Tuesday, there were 27 in Limerick, 50 in Galway and 35 in St. Vincent's. It is persistently worse in other hospitals. We have to get away from the idea that Limerick is the most dangerous place and the most under pressure; it is not actually.”
“When I look at the trolley numbers every day, Limerick is the only place that I will give a pass to in terms of being in the red because I know it has an acute bed capacity issue. It is not down to its processes. It is an acute bed capacity issue. It is absolutely clear that Limerick is persistently better on trolley numbers, whether it is counted on the INMO figures or the HSE figures. I might get this slightly wrong but they are two very different things. The INMO figures count the people who are in the emergency room generally. The HSE figures count the people on trolleys. They are slightly different ways of counting. More people are self-referring to the hospital in Limerick than in any other region and so those numbers will always be much higher. However, we need to look at the trend regardless of which one we count by.”
“We should not bring people into an already overcrowded hospital. Our first priority has to be patient safety and the well-being of the hospital. That is why it is so important that all the reforms I have been trying to push through since January in terms of weekend work, weekend rostering and weekend discharging are to make sure that we have a safe patient flow and that we do not have people backed up on trolleys on Mondays and Tuesdays. That is not just in Limerick but in every part of the country. All those reforms need to sit together to have a hospital that has a good flow all the time. Is it possible? Yes. The hospital in Waterford has had no people on trolleys in the last five years and it does not cancel elective surgeries. Why? It is because it has its patient flow absolutely tip top.”
“There has been a change in October and November this year. They do it all the time, but there is no change to the electives in St. John's. The electives are still continuing at St. John's and that is the model we have in Limerick to enable continuing elective procedures. We are also opening a surgical hub there to do elective procedures and take away the pressure, again to take away a thing that should not be happening in acute hospitals but can happen elsewhere. Why do we do it? Why do we have an elective flex? I hope there is not a single person in this room who would think it is acceptable to bring in an elective surgery into an overcrowded hospital thereby creating danger to the people already there and to the person who is coming in potentially for very sensitive surgery. We need to try to do it somewhere else or at a different time.”
“There is always a Christmas-winter flex and then we have to intersect when the flu season will hit; it changes every year. This year the flu season is likely to hit really hard in the two weeks over Christmas; normally it is a little bit later. We need to adjust and adapt to that. For anyone who has not yet got their flu vaccine, I encourage them to please do that. Even if they are not going to get the flu, even if they are not at risk, they can stop its transmission. From the experience of the southern hemisphere, we know that this will be a hard flu and an early flu. I am asking people to get the flu vaccine because that is the single biggest thing people can do to contribute to their loved ones' well-being and help the healthcare staff in Limerick. There are opportunities there. We always flex.”
“So, we are doing a couple of different things. We are moving as many outpatient appointments as we can to primary care facilities. I met one of the ENT consultants, Joe Hughes, who is now running his clinics in the primary care centre in Newcastle West. That is exactly the sort of commitment to Sláintecare that we are seeing from consultants there. He does not need to do his surgery in the hospital, requiring people to incur parking costs and other different challenges. He can do that in Newcastle West. That is one of the many things we are asking people to do differently that is happening in the mid-west. We do have an elective flex, not just in Limerick but in every hospital in every season not just in the winter season. We do that to account for a couple of different things.”
“The whole purpose of this is a patient safety issue. I have to correct a few things. Let me go through the patient safety issues. The whole approach is to try to make Limerick have enough capacity to have the same flow as other well-run hospitals like Waterford. Limerick is now an extremely well-run hospital. In the last 12 months, Ian Carter, Catherine Peters and Sandra Broderick have brought in really meaningful changes. All of the teams working there, all the consultants and all of the nurses deserve credit. The hospital is a different place in terms of how it is run and it is having a major impact on patient safety. What do we do? We do a range of different things all the time and not just at Limerick. We are trying to decant as much as possible from the acute hospital so that people who are acutely unwell can get the best care there.”
“The mid-west is a big opportunity for genuinely good thinking on that, bearing in mind what we have learned from the very important work of the infrastructure accelerator task force, which has been working with the Department of public expenditure and reform for the past six months or so. We have a major project of work. In my mind, I divide it into two sections: prior to Christmas dealing with the priority area of delivering acute capacity, which is what HIQA has said is necessary, so that must be our priority, and then the in the early part of 2026 having a proper structure that enables us to consider all of the factors about how we will deliver capacity for the longer term in the mid-west.”
“I am talking about cancer treatments that can be delivered closer to home after the patient has had the major diagnosis and the treatment plan in the acute hospital. What more can we do to deliver services? My intent is to bring forward a memo dealing with those three things in particular and to agree a process for how we will address option C, which needs to take a longer term approach to and analysis of what the perfect size for a hospital is and how that is best governed. We have a genuinely clean slate here and we are learning so much about the perfect hospital size in terms of efficiency, governance and clinical integration.”
“We need to get as much out of the Dooradoyle site as we can while exploring and delivering the other options. My intent is that the memo before Christmas will deal with options A and B together and set out a really substantial plan for how we can increase not just infrastructure capacity in Ennis and Nenagh, recognising that there are many more beds. I have should have spoken to that earlier. There are an additional 48 beds that are going into Ennis on top of the 81 that are there. That is a very considerable expansion. There will be something of a similar order in Nenagh. There will also be more radiology and other medical facilities such as disinfection facilities. What we have not fully explored, and what I have asked the HSE to give me, is a plan for how we can deliver more services from Ennis.”
“I thank them sincerely for their collaborative work. Everybody here simply wants to improve services for the people of the mid-west, whom they represent and to whom I have a major obligation. My intent, as I said to Senators and Deputies last night, is to bring a memo to the Government before Christmas to do a number of different things. One is to show how we are going to bring forth options A and B, particularly in the context of the new infrastructure guidelines that I hope will be approved by Cabinet next week. That is a really important enabler for us. The reason we did not do two 96-bed blocks at the same time related to the infrastructure guidelines and how difficult and slow they have been in the past, so this is an important enabling change and I need to see how that intersects with our plan for option A in particular.”
“Catherine Peters, the overall regional executive officer Sandra Broderick and the patient council, all of whom have done extraordinary work on changing processes in Limerick. Limerick has the lowest proportion of public-only consultant contracts and is working with the 2008 contract holders in an excellent way to ensure there are more people working at weekends. They are discharging better at the weekends, have the highest presentations and are discharging and rostering the best at the weekend. They really have taken every possible step and what they need are more beds and more acute capacity. That is very clear. I have met with the patient council and will meet it again. Last night, I met a cross-party group of Senators and Deputies to discuss the next steps of the review and outline my thinking for them.”
“It really works well. We have had very good outcomes and would like to see more of that. The Limerick surgical hub will open in the summer of 2026. We will begin recruitment for that in advance. It is very important. The idea is to pull out as much work that does not have to be in the hospital, such as elective and other day case procedures, to free up capacity for other things. Staffing has grown by 53% since 2019, including 300 more whole-time doctors, including consultants, 571 more nurses and midwives and 163 more health and social care professionals. All of those improvements show our commitment to increasing capacity and de-escalating the pressure experienced in the UHL emergency department more broadly. I compliment the work of the regional clinical director Dr.”
“I know these are lots of numbers and it is hard to imagine but the most striking thing for me was to stand in the soon-to-be-opened 96-bed block and look down and see the second 96-bed block about to be developed. The reason it did not happen at the same time was related to some of our outdated rules regarding procurement and infrastructure guidelines, which the Minister, Deputy Chambers, will be bringing measures to Cabinet next week to change. Other really important initiatives include the acute virtual ward for 25 patients, which went live last year. We want to extend that to 40 patients. That is like 40 beds. It is 40 people who can be at home under the care of Limerick in the bed or on the couch, properly monitored remotely. It is working well in Limerick and St. Vincent's and we are expanding that across five more hospitals.”
“A total of 278 beds have opened in acute hospitals since January 2020, including two 16-bed rapid-build units delivered in December 2024 and June 2025 and the 96-bed block, which I opened last month. A total of 236 of those 278 beds are in UHL. We can see the impact on patients waiting on trolleys. On enabling works, I have seen it myself in the second 96-bed block at UHL and a further 84 inpatient beds planned at UHL are under way. Those projects, including the 32 rapid-build beds and the first 96-bed block, will increase the bed capacity by up to 308 beds by 2028. Since 2020, we will have had 572 new inpatient beds across the region to 2031.”
“They include the expansion of capacity at UHL on the Dooradoyle site, option A; the extension of the UHL hospital campus to include a second site in close proximity under a shared governance and resourcing model, option B; and the development of a model 3 hospital in HSE mid-west providing a second emergency department for the region, option C. More than anything else, as Senators are aware, the report clearly identifies that the lack of sufficient acute inpatient beds in UHL and the mid-west region is the core issue that needs to be addressed urgently, and that is my priority. In addressing the issue, we continue to increase capacity as we try to increase capacity generally.”
“Regarding the HIQA review, in 2024, my predecessor Stephen Donnelly requested HIQA to conduct a review of urgent and emergency care in the mid-west with the primary objective of ensuring safe, quality acute care. As part of that review, HIQA was asked to consider the case for a second emergency department in the context of population changes in recent years and ongoing pressures across the mid-west. That final report was submitted by HIQA and published at the end of September 2025. As Senators are aware, the report presents three options and advices for me as to how best to address the capacity gap.”
“The report highlighted particularly severe pressures that night in the emergency department and the HSE established a structure to oversee the implementation of the 17 recommendations made by the report immediately after it was published in September 2024. Work to close out that implementation has concluded and was shared with the Department last month. The outcomes from the report contribute to an improved patient safety situation in the HSE mid-west region and across the healthcare system in Ireland generally because other departments are learning from the experience in Limerick. It has transformed their processes generally in the emergency department but also in other parts of the hospital since December 2024.”
“When I look at all the hospital trolley figures every day, there was a lot of red in January while there was far less red in the past seven or eight days. In Limerick, it really does come down to beds because it has made extraordinary improvements in all its processes, particularly in the emergency department. We know that in large part this is because of the implementation of the excellent report of the independent investigation by retired Chief Justice Frank Clarke into the tragic death of Aoife Johnston at UHL in December 2022. It identified several factors that contributed to delaying treatment and to Aoife's death. My thoughts continue to be with her family. I was so grateful to have the opportunity to meet with them this year.”
“It is not a universally perfect picture by any means but the difference in what is experienced in Limerick in the past number of weeks since the bed block opened is considerable. The average trolley number in the two weeks before the bed block opened was 54, while the average trolley figure for the two weeks after that was 20. As I look at the difference at random between my first pages of trolley figures and my most recent pages of trolley figures from January, we are looking at figures in Limerick of 72, 77, 57, 88, 91 and 69. If I look over the past number of days, the numbers are seven, six, 13, 30, 27 and 28. A figure of 28 people is too many but it is a very considerable difference and improvement and it reflects the trajectory we know we need to see.”
“Much has improved in Limerick over the past 12 months. To add to that, I was delighted to open the first of two new 96-bed blocks at UHL last month. Those beds were very much needed. The opening was important not just for Limerick but for the entire mid-west region. The bed block has already had a positive impact on capacity and reducing overcrowding. Since its opening, we have seen days this month such as last weekend where UHL reported on the HSE figures, which are our standard for measuring, nine, five and seven people on trolleys. On the same day last year, those numbers were 80, 75 and 59, respectively. The 96-bed block has had a major impact on trolleys in Limerick.”
“I thank Senators for the opportunity to discuss the HIQA review of urgent and emergency healthcare services in the mid-west. We continue to be fully committed to deliver the highest quality healthcare services nationwide, including at University Hospital Limerick and across the mid-west region. I take this opportunity to acknowledge the hard work, expertise and consideration that HIQA invested in producing its recent review and the advice it gave me. I also acknowledge the significant work undertaken by the ESRI, which contributed important research relating to the future bed requirements for the mid-west, which greatly informed HIQA's advice. We can all agree without hesitation that the people of the mid-west deserve access to responsive, safe, urgent and emergency care in a safe and timely way.”
“I refer to the impact of removing private activity from public hospitals, making sure the public funding is used for public provision but also understanding better how, with real delineation between public and private, we can better utilise private services in tandem with State services and how we understand the health market as a whole. I cannot accept the amendment on this occasion, but the broader issue the Deputy raises is extremely important and will be the subject of our debate anyway.”
“We have more work to do on that yet, and I look forward to working on that with the Deputy. As regards the specifics of this legislation, this year's Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill does not directly relate to that. It is about risk equalisation credits and stamp duty levies for health insurance policies in Ireland. Its goal, the purpose of the Bill, is to adjust the risk equalisation scheme to reflect the yearly changes in the market. It is mostly a technical Bill and an annual Bill on that basis, keeping the scheme running smoothly. The Deputy's amendment deals with a different matter, which is very important but which is not the subject of this Bill. On that basis, I cannot accept the amendment, but we should be engaged on this subject on an ongoing basis at the committee.”
“I thank the Deputy for the proposed amendment. The issue of reducing private income in public hospitals is one on which he and I agree. Indeed, we discussed it during the recent debate on the Estimates at the Oireachtas select committee. It is particularly pertinent given that this is the year it really kicks in. We have reached a critical mass of consultants on the public-only consultant contract and this is the year we expect to see it in our figures. We had a good discussion about that in the context of the Estimates. I do not expect this to be a recurring issue of the same magnitude. It is an issue this year and that is essentially banked into our figures for the future. It is very important we understand that, keep that on track and keep the measure to remove private activity from public hospitals insofar as possible.”
“I move: That Section 125A of the Stamp Duties Consolidation Act 1999 (No. 31 of 1999) be amended, in subsection (1), to provide for the specified rate of stamp duty in respect of an insured person in respect of relevant contracts renewed or entered into on or after 1st January, 2026, and on or before 31st March, 2026, and on or after 1st April, 2026, in the manner and to the extent specified in the Act giving effect to this Resolution.”
“All I can say is we are in the process of looking at that. I do not want to say something that is wrong. I need to double-check, and I will correct what I say if necessary, but we are very much in the process of examining the safety, application and reimbursement process for the drug. That is the direction of it. I do not have my note to hand and if I am wrong on this, I will correct the record. However, that is certainly the intent.”
“The Deputy does not like an answer. I am entitled to give him an answer to his question. He asked me about Monaghan hospital. Here is his answer. Cavan and Monaghan have two CT scanners and an MRI scanner. They are the same unit. Staffing has increased by 70%. The budget has increased by 54% for Monaghan alone. What the Deputy does not like is how my colleague, Deputy Maxwell, reminds him of the number of hospitals and services removed in the adjoining area in the North of Ireland that have been closed under Sinn Féin's watch. It is about time Deputy Carthy recognised the totality of services for people in that region as the rest of the country does.”
“That may be the Deputy's perception of all things but if he had been here he would have heard the dialogue around diagnostics, including from his party spokesperson, and the utilisation of them - he is sitting beside Deputy Conway-Walsh, whose county does actually does need a second CT scanner in Mayo University Hospital and the local injury unit. I was there this week.”
“There is nothing the Deputy likes better than a good campaign and nothing he likes less than a few facts. Staffing has increased by 70%. I am so glad to hear him acknowledge it today because there are so many times when I do not hear that about Monaghan.”
“I have heard about Monaghan hospital a number of times. It is really important to express how much investment in additional staff have gone in there. The budget has increased by 54% since 2020 and the number of staff in the Monaghan element of the Cavan and Monaghan hospital has increased by 70%, which is an outstandingly large outlier having regard to all of the other hospitals.”
“It is clear to me that the number of scans done at Cavan general hospital this year is very considerable and has increased but the opportunity to do more also exists. Up to 31 May 2025, around 22,000 CT scans took place in Cavan and Monaghan hospital, which is a year to date increase of about 6%. As I look at the operating hours, there are normal working hours of nine to five, two outpatient scanning per week from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and 24-hour seven-day-per-week emergency department services provided. There is always a well-acknowledged challenge in respect of radiographers and radiologists but it certainly shows that there is capacity in the existing CT machines with additional staffing and rostering to considerably increase utilisation. A business case has not been submitted by Cavan and Monaghan hospital for a third CT scanner.”
“Cavan and Monaghan operate as a single entity with integrated managerial and clinical governance systems, care pathways and support functions. They are 46 km apart from each other. Cavan and Monaghan hospitals currently have two CT scanners and one MRI scanner. Two CT scanners is one more than is available to the people in Mayo, where there is only one CT scanner in Mayo university hospital. There is no business case submitted by Cavan and Monaghan hospital for a CT scanner. The hospital does not have plans to seek additional CT capacity as clear clinical pathways exist to support the region. The replacement to the existing MRI has been approved. Works are expected to be completed by the end of the year.”
“-----or women for whom it has come as a consequence of pregnancy. Can we just put a line under that now that it never happens ever again in an Irish medical facility that a teenage girl is told to go and have a baby and that will sort her endometriosis?”
“If it was a once-off case, I would not say it in the Dáil. I have listened to women of different ages, including teenagers, who have been told, go and have a baby; that will fix it. Of course, it will not. I have spoken to women who have had children and it does not necessarily fix it-----”
“I will do everything I can do try to drive clinical trials and research. I am launching the clinical trials oversight group this evening. This is an obvious space. It is under-researched more broadly though there is an opportunity for us in France that I might to talk to the Deputy about separately. It is really important that she mentioned fertility. Fertility is inextricably linked to the experience of endometriosis. Many women have not been able to have children, have had to postpone fertility to try to receive endometriosis treatment and there are women trying to work out that intersection. This is why awareness is so important. I have met teenage girls who have had it suggested to them by professionals in the medical system that they have a baby because that would release the symptoms of endometriosis.”
“Teenage girls cannot participate in sport and perhaps cannot sit their exams. There are women who have gone through university, doing phenomenal jobs in the workplace, taking significant periods off and are not able to explain or have that understood by their employer. This impacts women's lives. It is important that it be broadly understood and named. It is a series of cells that can move through the body with exceptional pain right through from pelvis, through the diaphragm up to their shoulders, thoracic region and into women's brains and eyes. It is exceptionally painful. The more we try to explain that pain women have been going through, it will be better understood. It helps me to generate urgency around improvement in services.”
“I did not know that. I am sorry I did not. I am so glad the Deputy and I have the opportunity to describe the pain women face every day. As she said, it is like a knife fight inside you and yet she comes to the Dáil, working an extraordinarily demanding job, as everybody here knows. It is exceptionally physically and emotionally difficult and that is just the job. That is on top of all the things we bring to work with us. It has not been understood. The Deputy knows that better than me. She does not need me to explain that to her. I am glad we have a different understanding. I attended a fund-raising last night for a local rugby club and a gentleman came up to me to talk about his 28-year-old who had been in precisely the same situation for a very long time. The impact on women's participation in normal life has to be understood.”