Martin Daly: Calls for a National Allergy Strategy Now

Just to see how we can move this forward, I agree with you, Comhairle, I can agree with Deputy Cahill and with Senator Costo and Tom Clunan. We should write to the Minister for Health and ask is there a national strategy directly to the committee and get that response in writing. We should also write to, and I don't know you'll be able to help us on this, whether there's a division within the College of Physicians of allergy specialists or is there an association, but I can find that out and inform you we should write to them to come in and outline. It may not take a full session, it might be half a session, but it's something that we should do. The prevalence is 1 to 2%, it's underestimated and it is very frightening even as a doctor if you come across, I can vividly remember almost all of the ones in my career when they come through or someone comes in driven in by a car, it was the last one, it was an adult woman who had a bee sting allergy and was stung and it's a frightening situation for all concerned. It's very, very dramatic. So I do think we should follow up on that. I do think that we should write to the Minister for Education and just ask is there a, because giving an append is not rocket science, it's a bit like the fibs around the country. Everyone hides behind, I couldn't possibly do that and that was the unfortunate case six years or seven years ago. Someone felt, a professional person in health felt they couldn't give an anapen. We're talking about life-saving stuff here. It doesn't matter, nothing's going to happen, give it, you're going to save someone's life. There's no downside to giving that append. You're not going to get it wrong, it's food safe. So I mean in education I take on point that you shouldn't be relying on other children's anaphylactic medications within a school setting if a child has its first reaction. And I will look at the Finnish model as well as something. I am taken with the fact that we silo everything here. So someone comes with asthma, to me as a GP, you know, I treat their asthma, there may be obvious allergies, you know, there might be seasonal situations. Some asthmatics are sensitive to the cold virus, more sensitive so when the infection is over they're left with inflammation. Or to the flu or to COVID we've seen what's happened with COVID and that would be an example. But again, kids coming with eczema, you know, even if they do get to a dermatology clinic, they're treated in isolation often. Whereas going, the default position from what I'm getting from you should be go to the root cause of this, which is this is an allergy, it's an inflammatory process in the body reacting to environment. You're saying food, ranching and an awful lot of other things as well. And, you know, I'm really taken with your experience in France that you go with everything that's examined, the eczema, the asthma, it's not just simply the allergy. And I'm very taken with that. I still can't understand that if we don't have treatment available in this country that as European citizens you don't have the right to obtain that treatment in another European Union country. That was my understanding. I know for a treatment purchase fund you have to be on a wait list for something and then it has to be approved by the HSE, that's for procedures. But the cross-border treatment... The only other response on that is that it's not recognised as an approved medical treatment in this country. That was prior to the pilot scheme in Cork. Now I haven't gone and questioned it since then. But that's a cop-out. Because you could say it's not recognised in this country, so under the treatment here, but in the United States or in Europe or France or Germany. And by the way, bigger jurisdictions are internationally recognised, I agree. There's published papers going back many, many years on it, on its efficacy. I accept that, I accept that. I read your statement beforehand and just, it was this morning, I just went into it and it is well recognised. And you know, the challenge was always recognised. I just don't understand, I think that's goal-keeping, I think that's a system, looking after the system. I hate saying that. But we get lots of examples of that. And the fact that you couldn't obtain this treatment here and had to go to Europe, I just don't understand why that cost wasn't undertaken by the HSE or the Department of Health. It really does astound me.