I move:
That Seanad Éireann approves the following Order in draft:—
European Association of Programmes in Health Services Studies (Corporate Status) Order, 1982
a copy of which Order in draft form was laid before Seanad Éireann on 18 March, 1982.
Health Services Study: Motion.
This draft order is being made under the International Health Bodies (Corporate Status) Act, 1971. The only other corporate status order that has been made under the Act is the International Federation of Voluntary Health Services Funds (Corporate Status) Order, 1971.
The association has now established a permanent secretariat in Dublin. The order sought will enable the association to be incorporated in Ireland.
The European Association of Programmes in Health Services Studies was established in 1966. It consists of 29 corporate members from 13 countries. These members are Universities and Institutes with educational, training and/or research programmes in health administration or health services studies. The Institute of Public Administration is the Irish corporate member of the association. Membership of the Association is also open to individuals, associates and honorary members. It is a charitable non-profit making organisation.
The aims and objectives of the association are to promote collaboration between European countries in the organisation and conduct of educational and training programmes in health services studies.
The association arranges for information to be exchanged, organises study visits, encourages studies and research and runs an annual symposium and workshop for faculty of its corporate members. It has, in co-operation with the World Health Organisation and on its own initiative, conducted surveys and issued reports on training in health services and hospital administration in Europe.
The scale of the Association's activities has, however, been restricted by lack of resources. During the past year, however, the W K Kellogg Foundation in the USA made a grant of £174,000 to the Institute of Public Administration on behalf of the association. The grant, which is to extend over a period of four years, is to enable the association to reach its full potential in fostering co-operation in education and training for the health services. The grant will be used to pay for a full-time director and secretariat; to organise symposia and study teams, for example, to upgrade curricula; to arrange faculty development fellowships on a basis of exchange within Europe and between Europe and North America; and to support visits for study purposes.
I am satisfied that the association is a body that should be welcomed to this country and that its status is such that I consider the corporate status order should be approved. I have, in accordance with the Act, consulted the Minister for Trade, Commerce and Tourism and he has no objection to granting corporate status to this body. I have consulted the Minister for Finance and he has no objection to the proposal on the understanding that it involves no commitment for the Exchequer to provide financial assistance for this body. I have no proposal before me to give financial assistance to this body. Should the question arise in future years, the matter will be taken up with the Department of Finance. I have also consulted the Ministers for the Public Service and Foreign Affairs and they have no objections.
I would, therefore, commend this resolution to the House.
I take this opportunity to congratulate the Leas-Chathaoirleach on his appointment. I welcome the Minister to the House and wish him every success. It gives me great pleasure to support this order and the granting of corporate status to the European Association of Programmes in Health Services Studies. Any organisation which promotes and encourages research, development and education in this field should be welcomed with opened arms. I note that the Institute of Public Administration represents Irish membership of this association. I commend them for all their work in this area.
The two basic aims of the association are to stimulate new developments within the field of health care management and policy making and also to act as an intermediary between members of the association to ensure that the members learn from each other's experience in research and in development. This country must surely hope to benefit enormously from membership of this association and from exchanges of ideas.
I look forward to a long awaited policy and to a plan on community care in Ireland. We must look to other countries who are leaders in this field and implement the best ideas from these countries.
Up to now, voluntary bodies have given up their time and energy in this area but they have been struggling for lack of finance, information, support and assistance. We see enormous sums of money being consumed in Ireland on the administrative side of the health and social welfare system. I should prefer to see some of this finance diverted to research, education and preventive medicine.
We should encourage the development and education of the community in health care. The community should become more involved and our leaders at local level should be more active and outspoken. The society of the eighties is creating changing needs in health care. Everybody realises this. Hopefully, this association will help us to tackle the many ills in our society and rehabilitate those most in need. Much has yet to be done in this area. I understand that the Minister is very familiar with the problems which have to be tackled. Very little has been done on research, preventive medicine and health education. There are many areas that need research and study. Alcoholism and drug addiction are two of the most serious social ills of our times. It is a worldwide problem, so that we can only benefit by our active participation in this association.
Take unmarried mothers and in particular schoolgirl pregnancies and non-accidental injury. The increase in this area is absolutely frightening. The underlying cause of all this is unemployment. The problems connected with housing are creating tensions and putting excessive strain on couples and their families. We cannot run away from these problems any longer because emigration no longer is the answer. Marital breakdowns are on the increase. We seem to accept this. We give social welfare benefits and help these people in whatever financial way that we can, but I do not think that we do enough in this area. We must ask ourselves why. We must do more research and see how other countries have answered these problems.
One thing that continually disturbs me is the increasing rate of suicide. It has been pointed out over and over again by the medical profession that the numbers are being covered up. The statistics are frightening. We must uncover these statistics and tell the truth. We must do our research and find out the reason for them. There are far too many pressures on our school-leavers and our students in third level education.
We have had the Year of the Elderly, the Year of the Handicapped and so on. We have paid a lot of lip service in these areas. There is still tremendous work to be done. I hope that by our research in this area and by our membership of the Association at long last we will be doing something more than paying our usual lip service. We must find ways to keep elderly people in their homes. We must see how other countries are coping with this ever-increasing problem. There is tremendous research to be done in the child care area. Support services should be readily available for all people in the community.
This order is a major step forward. I look to full participation by this country. It is only by consultation and by research in a worldwide context that we can hope to develop in the health services studies for the betterment of our people.
I should like to tender to you my congratulations on your appointment as Leas-Chathaoirleach and to also tender to you my thanks and appreciation for your kindness to me and I am sure to other neophytes in the last short-lived term of the Seanad when you were Cathaoirleach. I welcome the Minister for Health, Deputy Woods, to the Seanad and give my approval to the resolution which is before us today — the granting of corporate status in line with the other European countries. I welcome the financial input to medical research and investigation. It is in line with our development as a full member of the European Community that we should be kept aware of and move forward with various areas of research into health.
I welcome the remarks of Senator Bolger. She touched on something which had been my point to make and which I am glad to take up. She spoke of housing and the need for proper housing in the overall context of health. That is a point that should be made again and again. I know it is one that the Minister for Health is very well aware of and one that he has spoken of often and has taken cognisance of. I do not think one can take health as a subject and say if we give you such a thing and treat you for such a thing you are a healthy person and you remain healthy. There should be much more emphasis on what I would call the broad subject of a healthy person, a healthy mind in a healthy body. The saying mens sana in corpore sano was very wise.
The area of housing is one which can lead to mental stress leading to ill health, and this should be looked at. I should like to see some of the Kellogg research funding, which is so welcome, channelled into ascertaining how the domiciliary conditions of people affect their health. It is just a point I should like to put to the Minister when he is here. As a member of a local authority I have come across many cases of mental stress leading sometimes, as Senator Bolger said, to marital distress and perhaps to marital breakdown. It is something that we should give due emphasis to.
I know the Minister announced that he is totally committed to an in depth study of the causes of drug abuse. I welcome his very outspoken statement on this matter recently. In Athlone over the past month we held a symposium on it to which the Minister for Justice, Deputy Doherty, came and there was a huge response. Over 1,000 parents attended, showing that there is awareness of the problem and that parents are anxious and worried about it. There was a great number of young people present too, showing they are perceptive of the problem in their midst and that they want to find out the dangers abounding in it. As I said, the Minister has announced publicly that he will implement an educational programme into the causes of drug abuse. I welcome that and hope that within the parameters of the granting of corporate status under the Kellogg foundation financing, some money can go into that area. It is a very major field.
I welcome the commitment of voluntary bodies to the field of health. There can never be a replacement for voluntary commitment. No matter what administrative staff or paid staff there is in any organisation there needs to be the backup of voluntary commitments which are given by so many bodies throughout the country. Child care legislation for the prevention of child care abuse which the Minister has recently announced, following the tragic case last week in Dublin, is very welcome. I suggest to the Minister that as regards social workers, care for young people and care for children at risk some money might very usefully be used for research in these areas.
I welcome this very important injection of capital into the field of research in health and I should like to see it, as I know the Minister means it to be, expanded to include not only preventive medicine and health in general, but also areas such as housing, schooling and the environment which have such a bearing on the health of people.
I congratulate you, Sir, on your appointment. To me it seems as if you have been there all the time, because the last time I was speaking here you were also in that position in the Chair. I congratulate Senators on their return to the House and hope we will have many useful discussions and contributions on legislation which will be coming before the House.
I thank the two Senators for their contributions, which show that they understand what we are talking about, because the very complicated nature of the title puts most people off in the first instance. I appreciate that. I could not do anything about it in the title because it happens to be the actual title. The European Association will be primarily concerned with health management and with educating and training health managers. It will not be directly concerned with medical matters but with the development of the theory of health care policy, which is something we are very interested in. Both Senators made that point this evening. It will be concerned about the theory of health care policy-making and management and the transfer of this theory into effective practice. This is something that we are very much concerned about — if we can get our direction right then how do we transfer that effectively into practice in our health services? I know that some Senators here have a good knowledge of the practice of the health services so they understand the challenge which is involved.
The Association is particularly concerned about research and information activities and it is intended to improve the education of health managers throughout Europe as a whole and to relate to those people working in the United States in particular. They have done some interesting work already. They held a major conference recently on primary health care management education at which 52 participants from 13 countries participated, and they have also carried out a comparison of European and American approaches to health management education and management arrangements for multi-hospital systems.
Senators see the kind of thing that they are dealing with, the multi-hospital systems where there are different kinds of hospitals and the inter-relationships between these kinds of hospitals. This is something that is very relevant to us at present because of the way in which we are developing our services. We have some hospitals which are less concerned now with acute hospital care and would be available for other kinds of care, and the question is should these relate back to the acute systems and to the community systems as Senator Bolger said. The Association has also established a task force to investigate the process of reviewing the quality of educational programmes and health management among our Eastern members. The task force is working currently. They publish on a regular basis a newsletter covering details of development in health management in Europe and health management education among the members. I might have words with the Director to ask him if there is any suitable literature which I might place in the Library here for the benefit of Members. The newsletter comes to mind as a useful reference for Members. They propose to publish a directory on health management education in Europe which, among other things, will give details of research activities among the members. That will be a directory of health management education in Europe which, in effect among other things will give details of the various activities undertaken by research members throughout Europe. They will also publish occasional papers arising form the fellowships which they plan. Before the end of the year they plan to hold two further conferences. One of these conferences is entitled "More Value for Money in the Health Services". We all know what we are talking about here. This will arise from some of the studies. There has been a European collaborative hospital study in which the Regional Hospital in Limerick has participated. That has been supported by the European association, and obviously this will help to bring some of the latest thinking and research findings in new approaches to cost containment and cost effectiveness and value for money generally into the health services in Europe.
The other conference which they are planning for later this year is entitled "Future of the Welfare State". Again that is a fairly readily understandable title and will lead in itself to another major publication which will be very interesting. This one is actually co-sponsored by the Nuffield Provincial Hospital Trust.
I think Senators have got a very clear idea what this body can do for us. We are very glad to have them based in Ireland. It has a lot of benefits. We have proximity for communication and keeping in touch. I suppose it will be our own fault if we do not make the most of that. We are very happy to welcome them here in Ireland. I am very thankful to Senators for the welcome they have given to them, because I know that will be noted and very sincerely appreciated.
Question put and agreed to.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
I should like to thank the Minister for his kind remarks, which are appreciated. Before I call the item on the Motion for the Adjournment, could I ask the Leader of the House for an indication of when the Seanad will meet again?
I cannot say. We will adjourn sine die.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
I now call Senator Barnes on the motion for the adjournment.