Minister visits HSE’s Health and Wellbeing Hub in Waterford

The Minister of State at the Department of Health with special responsibility for Public Health, Wellbeing and the National Drugs Strategy Jennifer Murnane O’ Connor T.D. was in Waterford to visit the HSE’s Health and Wellbeing Hub, located in the former St. Martin’s School, Kilcohan.

It was an opportunity for the Minister to meet and greet community delivery partners and health and wellbeing teams who provide integrated service delivery, supporting the vision of the Sláintecare strategy.

Among the groups with whom Minister Murnane O’ Connor chatted during her visit were:

• The Waterford Sláintecare Healthy Communities programme, including representatives of the HSE, Waterford City and County Council and community partners.
• The HSE’s Health Promotion and Improvement Team and workers in the Healthy Childhood Programme (Breastfeeding Initiatives in Waterford).
• The Waterford Vaccination Centre Team (who administer the RSV, Flu and COVID-19 booster vaccines at their Centre in Kilcohan).
• The HSE’s national Healthy Living and Active Living (HEAL) team and the HSE’s National Alcohol programme team, members of each being based in the Kilcohan centre.

The Health and Wellbeing Hub in Kilcohan is a regional demonstration site for integrated prevention and early intervention and delivers practical, community-based supports aligned to Sláintecare.

Welcoming Minister Murnane O’ Connor to the Hub, Kate Cassidy (General Manager, Health and Wellbeing, HSE) said: “We were pleased that we got to update the Minister on our current activity, which includes the Healthy Food Made Easy (HFME) initiative, our smoking cessation service (including the Quit and Stay Quit during Pregnancy programme), breastfeeding-friendly initiatives and peer support, chronic disease prevention and self-management supports and alcohol harm-reduction.”

“Through close collaboration with community partners (the local authority, Family Resource Centres, Traveller Health Project, the local Sports Partnership and SETU), the Hub reduces barriers to access, addresses local health inequalities and maximises shared facilities, workforce and data-informed planning. It also supports the ongoing transition to regional health areas such as the HSE Dublin and South East health region structure, by modelling joined-up governance, shared infrastructure and co-ordinated pathways across community and clinical services.”

“Another important feature of the HSE’s work at Kilcohan that the Minister was able to see fist-hand was the integrated vaccination service – regarding Flu, COVID-19, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), school based Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine (LAIV – nasal application for those aged 2-17 years) outreach to long term care facilities and those housebound.”