10 Nov 2020, 10:04
The Joint Committee on Health will discuss the HSE’s Winter Plan with Paul Reid at a meeting in Leinster House, tomorrow, Wednesday, 11 November at 11.30am.
The HSE chief executive will appear remotely before the Committee of TDs and Senators in Committee Room 2.
Speaking before the meeting, Committee Chairman, Seán Crowe TD said: “The Winter Plan was announced, with significant additional funding, to deliver essential patient healthcare over the coming weeks and months in a Covid-19 environment.
“The Committee welcomes this opportunity to examine this plan, which promises additional beds in acute hospitals, more home support packages, procured private bed capacity and extra intermediate care beds.
“How these additional beds and community hours will be staffed, what is being done to reduce cancer screening waiting lists and to bring cancer services back to pre-Covid levels, the plan to reduce general patient waiting lists for care and an update on the test and trace system for Covid-19 are all areas the Committee is interested in getting up to date information on.
“Winter is the season when we have witnessed unacceptable levels of overcrowding in hospital emergency departments across the country in the past. This has always been unacceptable but with the presence of Covid-19 it is imperative that patients on trolleys in packed emergency departments or on corridors are not a feature of Winter 2020.”
View live here.