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Health Support Services.

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 29 September 2004

Wednesday, 29 September 2004

Ceisteanna (766)

Fergus O'Dowd

Ceist:

945 Mr. O’Dowd asked the Minister for Health and Children the progress to date in the provision of services including medical cards for survivors of symphysiotomy. [22597/04]

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Freagraí scríofa

At a meeting which I had with the Survivors of Symphysiotomy — SOS — group late last year, I agreed that a range of measures would be put in place by the Eastern Regional Health Authority, ERHA, and the health boards to support the group. My Department is advised that the current position is as follows.

The health boards and the relevant voluntary hospitals in the eastern region have appointed liaison officers, who have met and continue to meet with patients who have undergone symphysiotomy to discuss their health care needs. An exercise was conducted, in conjunction with the SOS group to profile patients in order to assist in formulating a needs assessment for each individual. The possible provision of a one-stop assessment centre at Cappagh Hospital, Dublin, and of a similar facility in the southern part of the country has recently been discussed with SOS members. This service would be provided by a multidisciplinary team which would assess interested patients within a short period of time. Following assessment, recommendations for care pathways would be discussed with individual patients.

Independent clinical advice is available, on request, to patients who have undergone symphysiotomy. This has already been availed of by a number of members of SOS and appropriate follow up has been arranged. Independent counselling services are made available and have been provided to patients where requested. Information packs have been made available to general practitioners and relevant health care personnel. The ERHA and the health boards are also trying to ascertain the number of symphysiotomies carried out in hospitals throughout the country. This process is proving difficult to complete as the procedures were carried out some years ago and may have been undertaken in maternity units or in hospitals that no longer exist.

The chief executive officers of the health boards and the ERHA have agreed to grant GMS eligibility, based on medical grounds, to SOS patients who do not have such eligibility. Arrangements are being made, in association with the GMS Payments Board, to issue a special patient identifier card that will allow for the fast tracking of patients requiring hospital appointments and treatments, together with the provision of certain non-GMS items recommended for patients by their GP and/or consultant.

My Department is advised that, following a number of meetings with the SOS group, it was agreed to defer the establishment of a helpline. The provision of an information line will be the subject of further discussion with the group in the near future. The chief medical officer of my Department has tried to source an external reviewer to examine the practice of symphysiotomy as a tool of obstetrical practice in Ireland in past decades, taking into account the availability and safety of alternative procedures. The chief medical officer is continuing to seek a suitable international expert to perform this review.

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