The Irish Health Service.

Archeron

First off, I hope its not offensive that I ask this question here, but I do believe it will give an accurate answer from people who have experienced it firsthand.

With the illness you or yours suffer from, and the treatment you have received to date, what comes to mind when you think of how things have been dealt with by the health service in Ireland? Good, bad or indifferent?
I know we are blasted everyday with polls as to how many people hate the services, and hospitals closing down, but I thought would be interesting to see how we all feel.

Again, I'll not include boring gory details, but my own experience (in looking after my mum) has been so crushingly disappointing. While individual staff are amazing people, overall, it just doesn't seem to work. At every step, be it GP, hospital, surgery, there just seems to be so much red tape and waiting; its incredible. I feel that the rumors about our health service are true, and that it is in a critical state.
How do you feel about it?

(incidentally, our level of care is Medical Card. My parents are both disabled, so both have medical cards, and its public care all the way)

BanzaiBk

I'll be the first to bite. Been in the "hands" so to speak of the HB/HSE practically all my life (20 years old) with meninges issues and Cushings Syndrome. As a long term patient it's pretty clear that things certainly are not acceptable the way they stand.

Treatment on a personal level has been mostly great for me, you'll always have a few bad apples in an orchard but my dealings with 3 consultants, a whole lotta SHOs/Reg's and hundreds of nurses has been pretty favourable. As you said the red tape can seem over kill but it wasn't until I actually worked for the HSE that the amount of it (not the waiting times) was all so necessary.

The whole system needs an overhaul imo.

(my level of care is public also, it really doesn't make that much of a difference in public hospitals)

galah

It's been a rather mixed bag, for me personally. While everyone involved probably did their best, I had to experience so much cr*p that it's not funny anymore - this starts with doctors not taking me seriously, sending me for unnecessary scans and xrays, not sending blood tests off (to Belfast - absolutely ridiculous that there is no proper lab in the Republic), sending me home without any diagnoses/remedy/solution while I was still massively in pain, and charging me for the privilige, not reading my history and giving great advice like "take 2 paracetamol and if it doesn't get better go to A&E", and a lot of other random stuff...(including my first 'doctor' who conveniently forgot to tell me that she was only an intern, not a real doctor at all...nice)

And then there's the boyfriend's medical stories - 3 botched laparoscopies, a missed hernia (they found it 2 years later, while looking for something else), an acute appedicitis caused by one of the laparoscopies that went unnoticed for 2 days (including a leisurely 24 hour wait in A&E on a trolley while in severe pain), a threatened back operation although not necessary, and various other 'fun' stories.

And other people's stories - a gangrene appendix that was dismissed by A&E staff as food-poisoning, a heart attack that was dismissed as "tennis elbow", the cancer patient who caught MRSA and was sent home, filthy hospitals (one example: urine on the floor that wasn't mopped up even after asking twice), unhelpful doctors, unfriendly nurses, the list goes on.

And again, I think, under the circumstances, each healthcare professional did their best, but it's simply not enough (I can see why doctors misdiagnose - too many patients, too much pressure, not enough time, the same goes for nurses) - but the conditions in Irish hopsitals are a disgrace!

And don't start me on the cost of treatment - it's a joke. Granted, health insurance is cheap compared to other countries, but I'd rather pay more health insurance and get better, cheaper service for it...


The whole system needs to slim down with regard to admin - streamline administration, hire more nurses and doctors with better conditions, give GPs more power (in the sense of confidence) and their own xray machine (so that people don't have to go to A&E or consultants for minor problems that a GP could solve), and, especially for Galway: open a second A&E department!

Oh, and abolish those ghastly 'public' wards - it's ridiculous that sick people should end up in a 16-bed ward, where there's no quiet, no rest, and an increased risk of infection! Back home, 4 beds to a room is the maximum in any hospital I know...