Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 10 November 2020
733. Deputy Kathleen Funchion asked the Minister for Health the additional counselling staff, that is, whole-time employees, who will be deployed to the HSE to provide counselling services specifically for mother and baby home survivors. [35021/20]
View answer734. Deputy Kathleen Funchion asked the Minister for Health the additional counselling staff, that is, whole-time employees, who will be deployed to provide counselling services specifically for mother and baby home survivors. [35022/20]
View answer735. Deputy Kathleen Funchion asked the Minister for Health the package of measures that will support survivors of mother and baby homes. [35023/20]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 733 to 735, inclusive, together.
The package of health and wellbeing supports for former residents of Mother and Baby Homes and Related Institutions includes the provision of additional counselling services to help support the needs of former residents, the introduction of a dedicated patient advocacy liaison service for former residents and the commencement of a targeted health research study, which will assist in the development of any future service responses that may be required.
Although the need to prioritise the response to Covid has unfortunately caused some delays, considerable progress has now been made to ensure supports for former residents are in place as detailed below:
- The National Counselling Service has ensured that counsellors will be available. Details of the NCS service and contact details for each area are listed on the HSE web site, and a dedicated web page with information specifically for former residents of Mother and Baby Homes and advice on how to access counselling has been published.
- Connect Counselling, funded by the HSE, will provide free out of hours counselling service by telephone. This service is currently running from Wed – Sun (6pm – 10pm) but efforts are underway to have that extended to seven days a week.
- The call centre teams in HSE Live and the YourMentalHealth Information Line have been updated on all available support options.
- A paid search campaign will signpost to the supports in place
In addition, work has recently recommenced on the research project in terms of detailing research aims and objectives, research questions, study methodology and so on.
As the appointment of additional staff is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.
