Minister for Health Simon Harris says he will table a motion in the Dáil on Wednesday to establish a special committee to look at a ten year plan for the health service.
“This will provide a singular vision for the health service over the next ten years” he told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.
The Minister said that the committee will be able to hear witnesses, get expert submissions and report back to the Oireachtas and directly to the Ceann Comhairle within six months.
He said that this will provide frontline staff and patients with “a direction of travel regardless of political events”.
“We need a singular plan, to say this is where we want the Irish health service to be over the next ten years. This is how we’re going to get there and this is what it’s going to cost,” he said.
“How much would it cost to adequately fund the health service over the next ten years, that is almost an impossible question to answer. We have not yet designed that road map.”
Among the issues he is keen to address he said patients and patient care were an “absolute priority” for him. He said a new GP contract is required and he wants to reactivate the national treatment purchase fund.
On the issue of funding for cancer drugs, the Minister said if he were a patient he would not be comfortable with a politician making the decision. His priority is to speed up the process and he wants an investigation into why Ireland pays more for drugs than other countries.
“My absolute priority is for this process to be speeded up. There has to be a better way to do this, we have to work out ways to fund it, where we’re going to find the money.”
When asked about the ‘repeal the 8th’ issue, the Minister said that abortion is “absolutely a health issue in terms of the impact on the mother’s health”.
Vacant posts
He urged all hospitals to actively fill all vacant posts. “We lost 12,000 people in the health service during the recession, we got 6,000 back, we’re only half way there,” he said.
Meanwhile., Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty hit out at the latest HSE suspension of hospital recruitment which he says will severely impact on staffing levels at Letterkenny University Hospital.
Speaking on Highland Radio, Mr Doherty was referring a recent announcement by the HSE confirming that a pause on recruitment is in force until agreement is reached on a new workforce plan for each of the state’s hospital groupings.
He says the move has created a lot of anger and uncertainty among personnel at the hospital who are already struggling to cope because of staff numbers.
