Questions and Answers with Monaghan County Councillors
Bill chairs the information, questions, answers and proplem identification
and resolution meeting with Monaghan County Councillors at the MTech
Buildings on Armagh Road, Monaghan. The meeting lasted 3 and a half hours
and was constructive.
Presentations of the HSE service plans were detailed by Mr Leo Kinsella,
Local Health Manager and by Mr Brendan Casey, general manager.
Issues discussed were the roles of the St Davnets Roosky campus where acute
psychiatry will move to Cavan soon; St Davnet’s campus sell-off; St Mary’s
Castleblaney; , The Vision for Change policy for mental health; Primary Care
Teams across the county; Home Care packages and the Fair Deal for nursing
home care, the details of the doctor on call services and problems in North
Monaghan, Palliative Care, Dental Services and the recruitment difficulties
where there are two dentists short at present; Step down beds and the
details of developments in ENT and other changes at Monaghan Hospital;
Delays in X-ray reporting in cavan due to retirements and resignations of
staff, the imminent operation of CT scanning at Cavan; the consequences of
the centralisation of the administration of Medical card applications and
the controversy over discretionary medical cards; The reallocation and
management of home helps and district nursing services; Child abuse and the
system for manageing the massive increase in reporting; respite beds and the
problem of referral to Monaghan hospital from Droghed
a or Navan for step
down beds and convalescence;
The jobs freeze affects nurses, care assistants and home helps currently
which does significantly impact on direct people services.
With regard to NorthEastDOC -in 2009, I will quote from a reply from NEDOC
to Marie Deighan, Town Clerk Monaghan Town Council, “NEDOC received 2,645
calls from patients in tghe Monaghan Town and surrounding area, of which
1,315 were triages, 1,132 were seen in the Blaney centre and 198 were seen
at home.”
Among those that I recorded as speakimg were Cllr Sean Conlon (SF),
Councillor PJ O’Hanlon (FF), Councillor Paudge Connolly, Councillor Robbie
Gallagher (FF), Councillor David Maxwell (FG), Councillor Brian McKenna
(SF), Councillor Sheila McKenna (SF, Councillor Seamus Treanor, Councillor
hugh McElvaney (FG), Councilllor Heather Humphries (FG)