Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 9 November 2023
12. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the level of additional core expenditure for new developments, excluding funding for carry-over and otherwise maintaining existing levels of service, which has been allocated to the national maternity strategy for 2024; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48899/23]
View answerCould the Minister outline the level of additional core funding for new developments, excluding funding for carry-over and the maintenance of existing service levels, that has been allocated for the national maternity strategy for 2024? This strategy is essential to improve healthcare for women, from preconception, pregnancy and birth to postnatal and neonatal care, across acute, primary and community services. The strategy needs year-on-year funding to bring about the new developments, improve the care for women and upgrade their services. Many maternity hospitals are very outdated and require significant capital investment to bring them up to the standard that women deserve.
I thank the Deputy for the question and her support of the national maternity strategy. It is making a big difference. As she will be aware, I have set the progression of women’s healthcare services as a top priority of the Government. We have seen unprecedented investment in women’s healthcare and know this funding is making a big difference in gynaecology, endometriosis, screening and menopause services. We have invested in women’s mental health services, including perinatal mental health teams, as part of the national maternity strategy.
Significant investment over 2021 and 2022 provided renewed momentum to the strategy. It has enabled recruitment of nearly 150 additional full-time health professionals across maternity services. It is funding recruitment across a wide range of specialties of care with more than 70 nurses and midwives, 23 health and social care professionals, seven consultants and also supporting staff.
These staff and this investment improve services for women. They improve women’s lives every day. Each maternity service now has a lactation consultant and bereavement team. Postnatal hubs have been established in Kerry, Cork, Portiuncula and Sligo. The funding is improving home-from-home birthing suites, which I have seen in several hospitals. It is also enabling upgrades to theatres and wards. As the Deputy will be aware, we are establishing a national perinatal genomics service. There is very considerable and much-needed investment across the board in women's healthcare services and specifically, as it relates to the Deputy's question, maternity services.
I did not hear the Minister mention one number - either a financial number or numbers for the year 2024 to which my question related. He has not provided new funding for maternity services in budget 2024. We all know that these strategies need additional year-on-year funding to develop to continually improve and expand on the services. If this strategy does not get new funding, it calls into question a range of measures from upgrading hospitals to relocating services to the community and developing an integrated multidisciplinary approach to maternity care implementing HIQA standards, delivering safe staffing levels in maternity hospitals, rolling out community-based midwifery-led let postnatal care and developing breastfeeding support.
The Minister mentioned lactation consultants. I want to focus on the breastfeeding supports. The national maternity strategy implementation plan identifies that new measure funding is needed to develop these services every year to 2027. How much funding has he secured in 2024 to develop breastfeeding supports for new mothers?
The allocation of resources for next year is not at the same level that it was at for this year or 2022. The focus is on building capacity across the system. For example, I know the Deputy and her party are signed up to the safe nurse staffing framework. That is fully funded to roll out to every ward in every hospital around the country. It is to finish rolling out; a lot of work has been done. Additional capacity is opening up with acute beds, community beds, surgical hubs and other areas. Essentially in many of the women's services, like the see-and-treat gynaecology services, we have gone from a period of rapid expansion to next year consolidating those services and essentially reviewing the services in terms of brand-new services, rapidly expanded services to make sure that we are using the allocated resources to the greatest benefit of the of the patients who need them.
When the Minister says that it is not funded to the same level, I take that to mean none. Zero additional funding will be put into breastfeeding supports. I have concerns about the other care services for women, an issue he touched on in his response, and that is gynaecological services. The budget identifies no new funding for these and the funding to meet the waiting list action plan seems to be far less than in previous years. I am also concerned that this lack of investment in the public services means that the HSE will rely increasingly on outsourcing these services to the private sector. Some 35,000 women are on a gynaecological waiting list with more than 2,000 of them waiting for over a year for an outpatient appointment and 7,000 women have been waiting longer than six months. I acknowledge that in some cases the long-term waiting list has been reduced but I am concerned about the sustainability of this if investment is not continued.
I appreciate the Minister may not have a response to hand on those waiting list figures, on the reduction in the longer term waiting list or on the potential impact the lack of investment will have on this. However, I ask him to come back to me with a written reply. This is causing deep concern for the women of this country. They rely on properly resourced gynaecological services to identify issues early. We have spoken umpteen times about the need for early intervention and the early catching of any issue before it develops into a much more serious condition.
I fully agree, which is why we put such a focus in women's health services on the gynaecological waiting lists and rolling out this new national network of the see-and-treat gynaecology clinics. The clinics that are fully up and running are having it really important effect on the long waiting lists, as the Deputy mentioned, in hospitals such as the Rotunda, Letterkenny and many others around the country. I can confirm that the budget contains new development funding gynaecological services through the waiting list action plan. The three high priority services contained within that are gynaecology, paediatric orthopaedics and bariatrics obesity. There will be ongoing roll-out for exactly the reasons the Deputy articulated.
