Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 July 2021
2554. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Health the extent to which women’s health specifically remains central to the provision and delivery of a reliable level and quality of health services in all areas throughout the country without exception; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38112/21]
View answerProgressing women’s health is a priority for this government. We made a strong commitment to Promoting Women’s Health in the Programme for Government and are fully committed to the development and improvement of Women’s Health services and to working with women and girls to improve their health across the whole life cycle.
There has been recent progress in the area of women’s health including:
- the implementation of the National Maternity Strategy,
- implementation of the Sexual Health Strategy,
- establishment of a National Mesh Specialist Centre,
- improvements in screening services,
- improvements to sexual assault services, introduction of termination of pregnancy services,
- the rollout of the Maternal & Newborn-Clinical Management System, and
- the development of new models of care for ambulatory gynaecology and infertility.
Underscoring the government’s commitment to Women’s Health has been the establishment of a Women’s Health Taskforce in September 2019 to improve both health outcomes and experiences of healthcare for women and girls. The members of the Taskforce meet regularly, with its twelfth meeting held earlier this month. The Women’s Health Taskforce continues to work with the National Women’s Council of Ireland and the European Institute of Women’s Health to prioritise different issues each year with the aim of improving women’s health outcomes and experiences of healthcare. Critical to this work is the process of listening to women - the Taskforce has so far listened to, engaged with and worked with more than 1,000 women and hundreds of organisations representing women and girls across the country.
Based on this information, the Taskforce has developed proposals to improve supports for gynaecological health, mental health, physical activity, and menopause all of which are rolling out this year and next year. Through action like this forum, we can better address women’s whole health and help ensure that action on women’s health looks beyond reproductive health to make a real difference to women’s lives. Work is ongoing to identify priorities for the year ahead, aligned to Sláintecare, and I expect to bring these to Government for approval this Autumn.
Prioritisation of women’s have is further supported through the significant investment contained within Budget 2021. This includes:
- funding of €12m to ensure a renewed impetus to the implementation of the National Maternity Strategy and the new model of maternity care, and to improve gynaecology services.
- funding of €10m to screening services including Breast Check and Cervical Check,
- and building on the work of the Women’s Health Taskforce, a €5m Women’s Health Fund to improve women’s health outcomes and experiences of healthcare.
In the longer-term, through Sláintecare, we will be planning services around the needs of our entire population as part of the Citizen Care Masterplan. This will involve characterising the health and social care needs of our entire population by segmenting them into groupings of similar health and social care needs and characteristics. Factors that will inform this include age, socioeconomic status, health care utilisation patterns, health status, ethnicity, and gender. The insights gained from this will form an evidence base that will inform future service planning, workforce planning, review of eligibility, and capital planning. The service needs of women will be considered as part of all this.
