A Waterford TD is calling for the national review of cardiac services to be conducted as soon as possible.
Speaking at an Oireachtas Health Committee meeting today, Sinn Féin’s David Cullinane says they've been awaiting the review for over a year and a half now.
The Party’s spokesperson for health says continuous delays will have profound implications on the health of people in Waterford and the South East:
"The National Review of Cardiac Services is something close to my own heart - pardon the pun - because it's something that arose from a very high-profile campaign, as people will know in the South East, where we don't have 24/7 PPCI services.
"And again it's unacceptable that that review still hasn't been completed. I do accept that Professor Nolan was taken away to do other work but this review is at least a year and a half in the making, if not more.
"It has profound, or will have profound, implications for cardiovascular policy right across the state."
The previous plan ran from 2010 to 2019, and an evaluation of the strategy has not yet been published.
Deputy Cullinane described the lack of a review as "extraordinary" and "disgraceful":
"Obviously we need a new strategy, and I think there's a role for the health committee to ensure that that happens. We need to be ensuring that we write to the HSE, find out what's happening, and put pressure on that there is a new strategy put in place.
"I think it's extraordinary that an advocate organisation has to go to the lengths of putting down Parliamentary Questions and Freedom of Information requests to try and evaluate the effectiveness of a strategy that has been in place for nearly 10 years.
"It is absolutely outrageous that there has been no evaluation of that strategy."
Deputy Cullinane was referring to the fact that the Irish Heart Foundation had been unable to gain any of this information.
Their Head of Policy, Kathryn Reilly, was answering questions before this morning's Oireachtas committee hearing.
She said that they had struggled to get any information at all:
"In the end, we actually undertook the Freedom of Information request process with the Department of Health, what we found within that process that was particularly worrying was that there was no designated responsibility for cardiovascular policy within the Department.
"We couldn't find someone to take the Freedom of Information request and eventually it went to the National Patients' Services Office, the NPSO, who actually have responsibility for the cardiac services review.
"So, essentially, no evaluation was ever done of the recommendations."
