Advocacy in Action....Meeting Minister for Health, Dr. James Reilly.

May, 2011.

The Irish Heart Foundation met the new Minister for Health, Dr. James Reilly in May.  We raised a number of issues that are key to the improvement of the cardiovascular health of Ireland.  The Minister showed strong support for development of acute and community services for stroke patients, and for new tobacco control measures like graphic warnings on tobacco products and the banning of smoking in cars with children.

The key requests of the meeting were;

• Implementation of the National Cardiovascular Health Policy.
• Ensure the stroke posts which the HSE committed to funding in the HSE 2011 Service Plan are all filled.  
• Commit funding to continue acute stroke service developments in 2012.  
• Publication of the Neuro-Rehabilitation Strategy and provision of funding to the Clinical Programme for Rehabilitation.
• Tackle age discrimination in access to rehabilitation services. 
• Announcement of the date for the introduction of graphic warnings on tobacco products.
• The heart failure recommendations of the CVD policy should be implemented immediately and resources should be maintained for the HSE National Clinical Programme for Heart Failure.  
• Achieve the risk factor reduction targets outlined in the CVD policy. 
• Development of a structured CVD prevention programme at primary care level.
• National roll-out of the Guidelines on the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Clinical Practice.
• Make tackling obesity a major health priority and take a co-ordinated approach to address the obesity epidemic.
• Implementation of the recommendations of the Taskforce on Obesity.
  

We told the Minister of our intention to conduct a cost benefit analysis of stroke rehabilitation.  Our Cost of Stroke study (2010) showed that less than €7m is currently being spent on community rehabilitation services for the almost 50,000 stroke survivors in Ireland.  

We know the extreme financial constraints on the health service limit his capacity to make service improvements, but asked Minister Reilly to support the urgent delivery of all rehabilitation that is shown by this study to have the potential to save lives, reduce disability and also to save the taxpayer money. In addition, we requested the immediate publication of the Neuro-Rehabilitation Strategy to give solid policy grounding to much needed developments in rehabilitation services.

The Minister told us that he will accede to our requests for the introduction of pictorial warning and the banning of smoking in cars carrying children under the age of 16. We asked the Minister to re-think Government’s engagement with tobacco companies. In recent years they have been able to lobby the Government on issues such as tobacco tax, even though the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to which Ireland is a signatory – says that contact should be restricted to regulatory matters.

Funding was earmarked in the 2011 HSE service plan for improved stroke services, along with 12 new heart failure units around the country. In these tough economic times we want the Minister to ensure that funding for these projects is not withdrawn and that blockages to delivering these services are removed.  

Prevention has always been the core of the work of the Irish Heart Foundation. The Institute of Public Health estimates that the number of Irish adults with CVD (hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke and diabetes) will increase by around 40% by 2020.   Therefore, reduction in the risk factors for cardiovascular disease through a structured CVD prevention programme at primary level needs to be prioritised by the new Government. The roll out of the Guidelines on the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Clinical Practice at a primary care level is key to achieving this, so we requested the Minister to support the introduction of these guidelines as a matter of priority.