We need to do everything we can to prepare for another pandemic, says Donnelly

By Cillian Sherlock, PA

We need to do everything we can to be ready for another pandemic, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said, saying he was advised the world will be dealing with them more frequently than an average of every 100 years.

He said he was given this advice when he recently met World Health Organisation expert Dr Mike Ryan in Geneva.

Mr Donnelly said: “We need to do everything we can to be ready,” adding that he will be appointing an expert to do the “detailed scope” for an emerging threat agency.

Speaking at the Fianna Fáil party think-in, Mr Donnelly said: “We don’t know what the nature of any future track might be.

“And what we are doing is setting up an emerging threats function that we haven’t had in the country before, that is separate from the day-to-day work of reactive healthcare and the Department of Health.”

Mr Donnelly also said that there has been a cost overrun of about €600 million within the Health Service Executive up until the end of July.

“There are two things driving that overrun. The first is a set of measures and a set off errors where the HSE is spending money it should not be spending.

“That includes hiring into unfunded posts, it includes a level of agency, includes a level of overtime the HSC is not provisioned for.”

He said he is working with the HSE chief executive and the secretary general of the Department of Health to “drive that down”.

He said the second issue was significantly larger, and this related to “simple price and volume levels that were not provisioned for”.

Mr Donnelly said there was a higher number of patients presenting than anticipated and there was also increased healthcare inflation that was out of the control of the HSE.

“It’s demographics, it’s post-Covid, it’s patient volumes and it’s prices of medicines and wage increases and so forth.”