High respiratory disease rate ‘is being tackled’

A high hospital admissions rate for people with bronchitis and emphysema is being tackled, Junior Health Minister Marcella Corcoran Kennedy told a patients’ conference yesterday.

Almost 400,000 Irish people have a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), better known as bronchitis or emphysema, but many cases go undiagnosed.

COPD Support Ireland said the country has the highest rate of COPD hospitalisation among OECD members and called for testing to be made available in primary care.

Ms Corcoran Kennedy said respiratory clinical nurse specialists and senior physiotherapists were being appointed to deliver care and services in primary care.

“This is very positive and will specifically address the high rate of hospital admission for people with COPD,” she said.

Consultant respiratory physician Dr Marcus Butler said the national programme for COPD has a small budget and that continuity of care across primary and secondary care is poorly developed.

The executive director of COPD Support Ireland, Damien Peelo, said Ireland, after Macedonia, has the second-lowest number of respiratory consultants in Europe with 1 in 80,000 people instead of the recommended 1 in 35,000.