Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has says he wouldn't blame people for losing faith in the health service but insists signs of improvement are appearing.
Speaking to The Anton Savage Show on Newstalk on Saturday, he said “to an extent” he wouldn't blame people for losing faith in the government's ability to improve the healthcare system.
"We saw year after year after year waiting lists continue to rise,” he said.
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Last year was the first year in a many that saw waiting lists shorten, and Minister Donnelly promises that the trend will continue.
“We heard for year after year after year we need more hospital beds, we need more ICU beds,” he said. “This government has added a thousand hospital beds, hundreds of community beds and about 25% more ICU beds.
“People have quite rightly said we need more access to care in the community, an expansion of general practice, primary care teams, specialist teams for chronic disease management - all of those things are being put in place.
“Let's take community care. I sanctioned a workforce of over 3,500 people to work across the community. That's 96 primary care teams and 60 specialist teams.”
Roughly 2,500 of those roles are filled and Minister Donnelly promises that there will be “a lot more” filled this year.
“Those teams are just beginning to bed in and they're bedding in, in a lot of the cases, in new state of the art primary care centres,” he said.
Minister Donnelly also said he hopes he will not run out of 'political road' before he can achieve what his department has set out to.
In response to his party's slide in the polls, he told Anton Savage: “Every politician will say this. The only poll that matters is the poll on the day and a lot of the polls we see are online polls.
“What's a better hint is the face-to-face polls and what you consistently see is Fianna Fáil doing an awful lot better.
“This government has an important job to do in health and housing and education and the economy and other areas.”
You can listen to the Minister full interview with Anton Savage here.
The Anton Savage Show airs on Newstalk, 9am-11am on Saturdays.
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