Latest news with #ClaireKerrane
RTÉ News
17-05-2025
- Health
- RTÉ News
Opposition parties to unite over children's health
At 10am next Tuesday morning, a 14-year-old girl will begin a 50-hour sleepout protest outside the Dáil. Disability rights campaigner, Cara Darmody has been advocating for her two younger brothers who have autism. To coincide with her demonstration, the opposition will come together to pile pressure on the Government over the ongoing delays for children in accessing assessments of need. These initial evaluations are the gateway to accessing further services and without them, children and their parents are left bereft. According to Sinn Féin's spokesperson on Children, Disability and Equality Claire Kerrane, the waiting list now stands at 15,296. And just 7% of assessments are completed within the six-month timeline set down by law. In an unusual move, opposition parties are joining forces to table a Private Members Motion demanding that the Government take urgent action to address what they say is a crisis. This includes a workforce plan to increase staffing along with more funding for services. At the same time, the fallout is just beginning from the revelations of unnecessary hip operations for children. For several days the Government has been under attack for its perceived lack of urgency in moving to fill the vacuum of information for distressed families who may be affected. These parents have been receiving letters from Children's Health Ireland notifying them that their children should be receiving follow-up care after having operations. But these notifications - and over 2,200 have been sent - do not contain the vital confirmation on whether their children may have had unwarranted surgical interventions. And while a review is close to being finalised, it seems this will also not give definitive answers. Children as young as one years of age have had their hips opened up, cutting into their bones. The clinical review has been undertaken as an anonymised sample of operations at Temple Street, Crumlin Hospital and Cappagh Hospital between 2021 and 2023. A draft version of the review was leaked and published online and some findings have been read into the Dáil record. Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty told the House that 60% of surgeries in one hospital, and 80% in another, were unnecessary. He said: "Children as young as one years of age have had their hips opened up, cutting into their bones. "They have had to learn how to walk again. They have been left with scars for their life, and now we find out that these surgeries may have been unnecessary." This goes to the heart of the distressing evolving controversy. And the Government has been put in a difficult position of attempting to answer questions on the allegations while insisting that it must wait until the full facts are available. Taoiseach Micheál Martin confirmed this week that the full report should be completed next week and given to the Health Minister. It is expected to be published quickly. This will heap pressure on the Government to act as it has ultimate responsibility for appointing the board of Children's Health Ireland. That organisation is already firefighting with its chairperson resigning in the wake of the report into the use of unauthorised springs in children's spinal surgeries. Those were devasting revelations but were confined to three children. The unfolding issue of unnecessary hips operations is clearly much larger and may run to several hundred. Accountability and further inquiries So, there are two clear areas where Irish children are being failed by the State - the lengthy waiting lists for assessments of need and the revelations around children's operations. All of this focuses the spotlight firmly on children's health and services with the line Ministers firmly in the firing line. Attention will turn to accountability and further inquiries - both areas of danger for the coalition. In the wake of the springs controversy, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill resisted calls for the removal of the board of CHI. This line may be increasingly difficult to hold. And furthermore, it is already clear that the sample audit will not be sufficient and a broader comprehensive investigation will be needed. Impact on current surgeries In the meantime, questions are being asked about the impact of the ongoing review on services at the affected hospitals. Labour Health spokesperson Marie Sherlock has called on the Health Minister and Children's Health Ireland to clarify whether the ongoing review into unnecessary hip operations in children is having an impact on the provision of surgery. She has written to the Minister and the chief executive of CHI asking for answers to specific questions including whether any surgeon or staff member has been suspended or had their work curtailed on foot of the initiation of the review. This all means that Health is moving centre stage as was seen in the Dáil this week. New minister, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill appears to have had some early success on getting the HRT deal over the line with pharmacists and in getting some agreement on weekend rostering in hospitals. But this evolving controversy will test her political skills. Nothing could be more emotive than young children subjected to unnecessary grueling surgery while others struggle on waiting lists.
Irish Daily Mirror
16-05-2025
- Health
- Irish Daily Mirror
Opposition table joint motion as over 15K children overdue Assessment of Needs
Over 15,000 children are awaiting an Assessment of Need required to access services and therapies. The five main opposition parties will table a motion in the Dáil next week to put pressure on the Government to provide these services. An Assessment of Need (AON) identifies whether a child has a disability, the nature and extent of the disability, and any health and education needs that may arise. Under law, once the HSE receives an application in writing, they must start the assessment within three months and complete it within an additional three months. Details from the HSE given to Sinn Féin TD Claire Kerrane confirmed that the number of AONs overdue for completion at the end of March 2025 stood at 15,296. This represents an increase of 8% on the end 2024 figure of 14,221. Some 1,412 AONs were completed in the first quarter of 2025, a 65% increase on the same period in 2024 of 849. The HSE stated that the percentage of these AONs that show 'No Disability' has increased from 15.8% in 2010 to 26% in Q1 2025. They also confirmed to Deputy Kerrane that 3,131 new applications were received in the first three months of the year, a 20% increase on the figure for the same period last year of 2,603. The HSE told Ms Kerrane that a March 2022 High Court case stated that the HSE's AON checks were not meeting the standard required under the Disabilities Act, and it is now required to deliver diagnostic assessments where necessary. Tipperary teenager and disabilities campaigner Cara Darmody will begin a 50-hour protest outside the Dáil next week. In an unusual move, Sinn Féin, Labour, the Social Democrats, People Before Profit and Independent Ireland have tabled a joint motion which will be debated in the Dáil next Tuesday to coincide with the protest. The motion states that children are 'legally entitled to an assessment of their health and education needs' within six months and that 'the law is being broken with respect to the 15,296 children whose assessment of need is overdue'. It calls on the Government to 'comply with its legal obligations' and to make funding available for 'Cara's Fund' to clear the backlog. The opposition has also called on the Government to 'set a specific target date by which the Government aims to comply with the legal entitlement to an Assessment of Need under the Disability Act 2005'. Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has said that children have been 'scandalously left waiting for services and support' Deputy Kerrane, meanwhile, stated that there has been a 'frightening increase in the waiting list for Assessment of Needs from 500 in the summer of 2021 to over 15,000 now'. She added: 'Worryingly, the HSE anticipates that this will only get worse and expects that by the end of 2025, there could be as many as 24,796 assessments of need due for completion. 'It is clear that the government still does not have a plan to stop the state from breaking the law and to ensure that children get their assessment of needs within six months.'
Irish Independent
01-05-2025
- Health
- Irish Independent
New ambulance base poised for St Brigid's Hospital lands in Ballinasloe
A letter was submitted by the NAS in response to a parliamentary question by Claire Kerrane TD, asking the Minister for Health to consider the establishment of a new ambulance base on the HSE-owned lands. A review has recently been taking place between the NAS and the local HSE Capital & Estates office into the use of lands at St Brigid's Hospital in Ballinasloe. In the review, the NAS indicated the requirement for a new ambulance base to replace the existing facility and said that this provision had been included in the lands to be retained by the HSE. The NAS has also pointed to a need for a fixed long-term base for educational facilities in the region, with college services currently provided from the Ballinasloe Enterprise Centre building. "I welcome any new service being made available on the St. Brigid's site, especially a much-needed new ambulance base to replace the current one in Ballinasloe,' Sinn Féin TD for Roscommon-Galway Claire Kerrane said. "I have also asked the HSE that they consider co-locating a purpose specific education facility for the National Ambulance Service given their need for a new education centre. I believe St Brigid's is a perfect location for both, and it would be beneficial to have them co-located. "I again call on the HSE to explore what other services and supports can be provided to the people of Ballinasloe and surrounding areas on the St Brigid's site before moving to the open market which could see lands sitting on the market for a long time, providing a perfect excuse for the HSE not to do more to develop it."
