asked the Minister for Health the estimated number of children who require speech therapy in the Eastern Health Board area.
11.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Speech Therapy.
10.
asked the Minister for Health the number of speech therapists working in the Eastern Health Board area; and what plans his Department have for providing more speech therapists in this area.
With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 10 and 11 together.
I suggest that the Deputy address his inquiries to the Eastern Health Board, who are responsible for administering speech therapy services in the area of the board.
On the general question, the Deputy may not be aware that there is a shortage of speech therapists and that until a few years ago there were no facilities in this country for training. At the request of my Department the National Rehabilitation Board, the official body set up under the auspices of my Department to foster and coordinate rehabilitation activity, established the Dublin College of Speech Therapy in 1969. The first 11 students from the college will, on completion of the three-year course, be sitting for their final examinations next month, to be followed by up to a further 17 next year.
How can the Minister say that the school of speech Therapy was set up at the instigation of his Department and yet the Minister has no statistics available of the number of children and adults needing speech therapy in the Eastern Health Board region? How could they know even the number of pupils to be taken into a school to be trained as speech therapists when they do not know the number of children who need therapy or have no projected figures for years to come?
We have some idea of the number of people in the country who need speech therapy——
Why can the Minister not give it?
——but the figure, if given, includes people who need various kinds of speech therapy——
Is it not true that that figure is ten years out of date?
——not necessarily the kind of teaching provided by trained speech therapists of the kind referred to by the Deputy.
Question No. 12.
Could the Minister give us the figure and the date when it was obtained?
A survey was made some years ago among national school children and it was found that 1½ per cent, or about 2,400, might require some treatment. The health boards have been advised of these percentages. Let me make it clear that there are various kinds of speech treatment and not all children in that classification would require the services of a speech therapist who is engaged to teach children to speak who are really incapable of it or who have a very fragmentary form of speaking.
Question No. 12.
We are aware, and the Minister does not have to tell us, of the difference between elocution and speech therapy. May I ask the Minister——
No, I have called Question No. 12. The Deputy may not ask the Minister any further supplementaries.
——What plans there are for increasing the number of speech therapists in the Eastern Health Board area?
The Deputy will find that a certain number of the new speech therapists have been allotted to the Eastern Health Board but I would be very glad to see those people interested in speech therapy in the Eastern Health Board area, the experts and the people, talking with the members of the board and with the officials so that the Eastern Health Board can be stimulated by those people within the area. If they still have complaints they can come to me and they can ask questions in the Dáil.
When is the Minister going to do a survey?
There should be a collective feeling of responsibility for the health boards.
12.
asked the Minister for Health whether speech therapy at out-patient departments of voluntary teaching and health board hospitals is free of charge to those paying 15p per week contributions under the Health Contributions Act, 1971; and, if not, why.
Speech therapy is free of charge to those paying the above-mentioned contributions, if provided as part of an out-patient consultation service.