Tag Archives: Minister for Health

The Irish Cancer Society is calling on people in Clare to bring pressure to bear on the four local TDs to support its campaign to extend the free national breast cancer screening programme, BreastCheck, to women aged 65 to 69 in 2015. Women aged 60 to 69 have the second highest incidence of breast cancer and the second highest chance of dying from it. Yet only half of this age group is currently being screened. BreastCheck invites women aged 50 to 64 for free screening every two years. Women who are 65 to 69 are not being screened. The Cancer Society wants to ensure these women are not forgotten about. The society’s head of advocacy and communications, Kathleen O’Meara said, “The 2011 Programme for Government promised an extension of BreastCheck to the 65 to 69 age range. Future Health, the Government’s reform plan for the health service, promised the roll-out would begin in 2014. This has not happened. “The Irish …

Former Ireland and Munster rugby star, Keith Wood is the first chairperson of the Healthy Ireland Council. His appointment will be formally announced by Minister for Health Dr James Reilly at the inaugural meeting of the council in Dublin Castle on Thursday morning. Mr Wood is a  founding Director of W2 Consulting. Minister Reilly will also announce the names of the 37 members of the council. Healthy Ireland involves a whole-of-government and whole-of-society response to improving the health and wellbeing of Irish people over the coming generation. The establishment of the Healthy Ireland Council is the most significant action within Healthy Ireland to leverage engagement with whole-of-society. The council will provide the platform to connect and mobilise communities, families and individuals into a national movement with one aim: supporting everyone to enjoy the best possible health and wellbeing.

MAYOR of Clare Joe Arkins said he has decided he will never willingly go back for treatment at the emergency department in University Hospital Limerick. At a meeting of Clare County Council, the mayor said he had spent a night and a day on a trolley in the hospital and that he “decided I’d never be there again if I was conscious”. He made his comments as the council passed a motion calling on the Minister for Health, the HSE and the management of University Hospital Limerick to intervene to stop overcrowding in the emergency department and to stop people being kept on trolleys for long periods of time. The motion was put down by Fianna Fáil’s Pat Hayes, who said the current situation is “a total disgrace” and that there had not been proper preparation for scaling back at Ennis and Nenagh. He claimed when the Minister for Health made a visit there, people on trolleys were moved into …

A YOUNG nurse at University Hospital Limerick broke down in tears on her doorstep after outlining the problems caused by chronic overcrowding. That’s according to Councillor James Breen, who has requested Health Minister James Reilly to take urgent action to address the lack of beds at UHL. During a recent canvass, Councillor Breen met a young nurse who asked him if there was anything he could do to stop the “inhumane treatment of patients who are made to lie on trolleys for hours waiting for admission. “The pressure and stress on nursing staff that are at the cold face of this situation and who also have to contend with abuse and criticism on a daily basis, is adding to the already intolerable work conditions,” he said. As a former member of the Ennis Hospital Action Committee, he said it is distressing to think that 20 years since the committee was founded, nothing has changed. “Only this time there seems to …