Exercise vouchers should be funded by the Department of Health to allow patients on medical cards access to weight reduction programmes, the Irish Medical Organisation agreed yesterday.
Speaking on a motion tabled by the IMO GP committee, Dr Niall McNamara from Waterford said financial barriers to availing of exercise programmes should be removed.
He said doctors could prescribe exercise to patients with obesity and weight problems and could provide vouchers for the local gym, swimming pool or aerobics class so that they could be accessed by patients with medical cards or on low incomes.
"There would be policing issues, the vouchers would have to be non-transferable and the mechanism would have to be worked out at HSE level, but it would help remove barriers to exercise programmes for some people," he said.
The motion, calling on the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive to provide funding for both "preventative and therapeutic clinical indications", was carried unanimously.
The organisation also passed four motions related to hospital-acquired infections, including MRSA. It called on the HSE to address issues including isolation rooms, overcrowding, consultant-led infectious disease teams, education and systematic screening programmes.
Dr Christine O'Malley, ex-president of the IMO, said everyone knew clean hands and clean hospitals were a good idea, but they would not get rid of MRSA. "Hospitals with low levels of MRSA have low bed occupancy," she said. "Florence Nightingale knew about the importance of space between beds in infection control. We seem to have forgotten that."
She said hospitals reporting high levels of MRSA were probably the ones doing the best job in tackling it. She criticised the Government hygiene audits in hospitals last year, and asked if it was a deliberate attempt to vilify hospitals.
Hospitals did not have enough small wards or isolation rooms to deal with infections such as MRSA, clostridium difficile and the winter vomiting bug, Dr O'Malley said. Overcrowding and the practice of putting a new patient into a bed still warm from its last occupant did not help infection control.
Motions calling on the Government to fulfil its undertakings to provide 200,000 additional full medical cards and to honour its commitment to provide 200,000 doctor-only cards were also passed.
