"There is absolutely no doubt in my mind....

edanto

...that my sister could have lived longer had Ireland better services".

This is a comment on the CF services that our healthcare system has to offer. What is the government doing about it??!

tribune.ie later today, or whenever they put up the story that's on page 5 of today's newspaper

I voted Green, instead of greed and thought that maybe a few discussions at the cabinet table would have sorted out urgent crises like this?!

cavedave

Do you know that better medical care would result from spending more on the health system?

If medicine were taxed so much that people only bought half as much, they would be just as healthy.

In the 1970s, the RAND Health Insurance Experiment randomly assigned 5000 adults to free or full-price health care over 3-5 years. Free care folks got more eyeglasses and teeth filled, and spent ~30% more, but were otherwise no healthier. This result is consistent with typical time-series and cross-sectional analyses. I'm willing to extrapolate from this 30% change to a 50% cut. (More here.)

Here is a podcast on the economics of healthcare if you would rather listen then read.

murphaph

cavedave wrote: »

Do you know that better medical care would result from spending more on the health system?

Average age of mortality for CF sufferer in Ireland:22
Average age of mortality for CF sufferer in Canada:36

Reason: Better care for sufferers. I picked Canada but it's not unique. In Ireland adult CF sufferers are dumped into wards with other sick people and worst of all, other CF sufferers to cross infect with. This simply doesn't happen in the UK, Denmark, Candada etc. etc. They keep CF sufferers in total isolation whilst at hospital, so they end up living longer.

It's not just about pumping money into the HSE of course. It's about spending it wisely. Ultimately I blame the government and successive governments for allowing the health service to become as sick as it's 'customers'.

It's not all bad, but parts of it are very bad.

cavedave

Canada is a good example

How much do they spend on healthcare?



And next is total spending on healthcare. And another image here that will not show up.
http://bp1.blogger.com/_CQyU4ayBifw/R4eyAzDRcDI/AAAAAAAAAwI/-lHc2y2hyjk/s1600-h/health+care+spending.JPG

Canada does spend slightly more then Ireland. People live longer in Canada.
Canadian helathcare does seem objectively better then Irish healthcare. Do other factors in Ireland (for example 30% of A&E admissions here are for alcohol related problems) make us more unhealthy then the Canadians?

mike65

Interesting spike downwards at Cuba.

Mike.

edanto

How expensive could it be to retrofit some existing wards (that may be closed off since we don't have the staff for them) by taking out half the beds and putting in some internal walls and doors?!

I've done bigger buiding projects with my mates.

No, this isn't a thread about the best way to spend the whole health budget, more a specific comment on the way that the system treats one group of sufferers.

The current system is proven to put people with cf in harm's way. Why the faffing about by the government?

is_that_so

A friend of mine got a public appointment for her father - endoscopy of some kind for 7th January, less than three weeks after the initial visit. Stories like that are not worth reporting on because it is often easier to concentrate on all of the things that are wrong with the Health service. Cancer and CF are high profile and there are obvious shortcomings with services for patients affected by them.
However my own feeling is that sometimes when "the mejia" is a bit short on real news they turns to the good old human interest with a bit of HSE thrown in.
I also believe that this kind of change take time. The new cancer strategy, is only starting to roll out now, although it was proposed in 2005.

Akrasia

mike65 wrote: »

Interesting spike downwards at Cuba.

Mike.

and yet they still have a higher life expectancy that Ireland.

Not bad for a 'developing country'

The biggest problem with the Irish health care system is a lack of capacity. There aren't enough beds. from watching the health care system develop over the last decade, it seems to me as though this was deliberate because of an ideological opposition to state supplied services and the idea of universal healthcare. The PDs are deliberately keeping the public health care system at breaking point because that makes it much more attractive for private investors. (the new hospitals will be guaranteed plenty of patients at a lucrative price which they might not have been if there was an adequate public health service)

edanto

cavedave wrote: »

Canada is a good example
How much do they spend on healthcare?

Well based on your graph, I would argue that Canada spend about the same as us per capita (lets not split hairs).

Considering that the life expectancy of someone with cf in Canada is about 60% greater than in Ireland, something is seriously wrong here.

Fair enough governments have competing priorities for the public purse rar rar rar but ffs is it not OBVIOUS what they should spend some money on in this case!!

Anyone on the thread work in the health services? Inside opinion?

Dave!

mike65 wrote: »

Interesting spike downwards at Cuba.

Mike.

Anyone know why this is? Seems pretty crazy. Do Cubans just live generally healthier lives, or have they got it right in terms of health services?

cavedave

Some description here and here of why Cubans live so long. Social reasons are given as an explanation.

The biggest problem with the Irish health care system is a lack of capacity

30% of the A&E capacity is taken up by drunks. Much of our cancer and heart disease demand could be reduced by less smoking, eating fruit and veg and exercising. Not all of it obviously but a fair bit of the demand. Why not try and reduce the demand rather then always increase the supply of health care?

This relates to CF in that someone who suffers from this has to compete with others who demand health care. So reducing the demand of others should leave more resources for CF sufferers.

jmayo

Half the money we spend on the healthcare system is blown on salaries and cockups.
We have a HSE beaucracy that is just jobs for the boys or girls and most of the employees are just marking time until their pension.
How could they (HSE and department) manage to blow over a 100 million on the cock up of PPARS and still meerily go on their way.
Nobody is responsible for anything whould be their motto.

I have, or rather had, an elderly relative that was admitted into a hospital with chest infection and some other problems.
Within couple of weeks he had MRSA which no doubt eventually helped to his demise. It was treated as a normal occurence.

What is the point of building nice new hospitals if we can't even keep them f***king clean. Florence Nightingale kept cleaner wards than we manage in some hospitals.
The nuns did a better job running the system than the bunch of incompetent lazy shi**s that are there now.
Yes there are some administrators just like there are good nurses and doctors, but they are in the minority in my opinion.

There is something wrong with every area of the system.
Maybe we will be better off with private hospitals since at least we won't be dependent on the incompetent shower in the public system who are protected by their unions and lobby groups.