Health minister signals announcement on psycho-active drugs within a week

Health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has indicated that an announcement regarding a ban on psychoactive drugs, such as HHC, is likely to be made in the coming week.

She was speaking to The Echo during a visit to Millstreet Community Hospital, where she met with staff and had a meeting with senior figures of the HSE South-West at the newly renovated facility outside the Duhallow town.

A recent story in The Echo revealed that a 12-year-old boy in West Cork had been left not knowing who he was and having to be admitted to Cork University Hospital after taking the drug.

When this was raised with the minister in the context of promised restrictions on the drug, which is legally available in some vape shops, she said: 

“I think, if you give me a week, I might have an update for you for that.”

Ms Carroll MacNeill also acknowledged what she described as real challenges in reducing the waiting times for assessments and treatments for children and adolescents in areas such as dietetics, psychology, podiatry, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, audiology, ophthalmology, and physiotherapy.

“It very much depends on the area because, in some areas, we’ve had very significant waiting-time reductions, and in others there are real challenges — particularly on the mental health side,” she said.

“This is part of the challenge of making sure we have surgical hubs and elective hospitals because, while waiting times have gone down, they’re not meeting Sláintecare targets at the moment of 10 and 12 weeks.

“I’m looking at every region, every hospital, to make sure we’re maximising capacity.”

The minister said she did not believe that all the surgical capacity and operating theatres were being used “well enough” in the South-West region, which comprises of Cork and Kerry, pointing to new theatres for ophthalmic surgery being in the region.

“That’s a key responsibility for the region, to make sure that we’re using the resources that we have effectively, and it’s my responsibility to make sure that the funding and the plan is there to add to that,” she said.

Ms Carroll MacNeill also paid visits to community hospitals in Macroom and Kanturk during her two-day sojourn in Cork.

“Substantial public investment is being made in healthcare infrastructure to support the ambitions of Sláintecare, including over €50m allocated to the sites I visited today,” she said.