Resign Mary Harney

deman

It's just been one thing after another for Mary Harney. She seems to be one of the most self serving and negligent politicians this country has ever produced and it's time for her to go.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?v=info&gid=87828570523

Join this group and bump up the thread when you join.

theg81der

I joined! She looks tired maybe she is working hard how do we know but she`s not getting anywhere if she is. Time to give up the ghost.

Ronan|Raven

Just what the world needs, another facebook group protest..

mike65

deman, you are in Finland.

Breezer

It has been "one thing after another" for the entire Government for many years now. I'd love to see the entire Government replaced, and will vote as such, but in the meantime I don't see why Mary Harney should be singled out.

What exactly are you referring to when you say "one thing after another"? The recent X-ray 'scandal' where there was a 0.006% error rate in reading X-rays?

My response to that:
1) The Minister does not personally read X-rays
2) She should not be expected to inspect every individual doctor's X-ray reading like a teacher checking homework
3) This is a very respectable error ratio
4) Nearly every patient in a hospital will have an X-ray of some sort done. It is not practical for every single one of these to be reported on by a consultant radiologist. ALL doctors receive training at undergraduate level in how to read plain film X-rays. Similarly, a consultant cardiologist is not needed to review every ECG, a consultant in Infectious Diseases is not called every time someone has pneumonia, etc. The system generally works, and the error ratio in this case speaks for itself. The media have blown this out of all proportion.

There was another cancer misdiagnosis scandal in Portlaoise a few years back. I seem to recall Minister Harney trying, before this, to centralise cancer services in 8 centres of excellence, which could be properly resourced, rather than having substandard equipment in lots of local centres. What happened? People were up in arms. What happened when said substandard equipment caused cancer to be misdiagnosed? The same people were up in arms again.

There was an excellent article in The Irish Times yesterday by Stephen Collins which I think everyone jumping on the anti-Harney bandwagon should read: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0313/1224266197385.html

I am not a supporter of Mary Harney. I fundamentally disagree with her on co-location. I don't like the way she deflects every single question by saying "That is a matter for the HSE," but yet has not put a system in place where the HSE is answerable to the public. I do not think she should be taking such an extended trip to New Zealand at this time (although I reject the notion that, it having been planned months ago, she should now cut it short to come home and answer questions about X-rays. Anything she has to say can be said from New Zealand). I personally think James Reilly would do a far better job. But I detest this witch hunt that is now going on.

Please tell me who, from the Government side of the house, do you think would do a better job? I can't think of a single person. In fact, I can think of one, possibly two from the Opposition benches who could, and that's it. She is no worse than any other Government minister, better than a lot of them (Mary Coughlan in Health anyone?), and while she should go, it should be as part of a failed Government, and not because some Facebook warriors have decided they want a scalp.

mike65

Breezer wrote: »

(Mary Coughlan in Health anyone?)

:eek:

skearon

deman wrote: »

It's just been one thing after another for Mary Harney. She seems to be one of the most self serving and negligent politicians this country has ever produced and it's time for her to go.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?v=info&gid=87828570523

Join this group and bump up the thread when you join.

Wonderful, another ignorant troll posts nonsense.

Read Post #5, perhaps it might educate you

Biggins

Todays Sunday Business Post

When will those that are supposed to be running the HSE, acknowledge that the buck stops with them.
Surely a 60 million security cock-up hasn't gone un-noticed too by Harney?
I wonder who will she pass the buck to on about this one, this week?

jimmycrackcorm

I hardly think that Mary Harney can be blamed for the computer system either. Incidentally that problem looks like a simple configuration issue where the wrong people were given incorrect system access roles and not an actual flaw in the system.

Then real problems here, and I also draw back to the PPARS issues, is that no-body who is actually responsible for these things actually gets fired and that's because of the power of the unions. If then actual people personally involved in these problems could be directly fired then we'd see less of them. Instead we get calls for a figure-head such as the current minister for health to resign which in no way prevents these problems from re-occuring.

Biggins

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I hardly think that Mary Harney can be blamed for the computer system either. Incidentally that problem looks like a simple configuration issue where the wrong people were given incorrect system access roles and not an actual flaw in the system.

Then real problems here, and I also draw back to the PPARS issues, is that no-body who is actually responsible for these things actually gets fired and that's because of the power of the unions. If then actual people personally involved in these problems could be directly fired then we'd see less of them. Instead we get calls for a figure-head such as the current minister for health to resign which in no way prevents these problems from re-occuring.

So your stating that she didn't authorise the purchasing of this system?
And/or that she didn't sign somewhere for the money to be paid?
And/or that she asked for the money in the first place for the system?

And if any ONE of those above is true - she ought to have been keeping eye on how it was going, being integrated and used!

There is no union keeping Harney in place, just Cowen who is trying to hold onto her precious seat I suspect for his dwindling majority!

Its just one more day in the life of the HSE - one more screw-up that land on Harneys desk - pity she isn't there a lot of the time!

flutered

is not the captain responsible for the ship, its definatly not the third mate.

lucy2010

from the start I always wondered how such an unhealthy looking overweight person could be minister for health.. Sorry but she doesnt exactly represent it very well purely by just looking at her.

Bassboxxx

I can't believe the attitude that if she didn't know, why should she resign!!!

so are we saying that ignorance is a defence now?????

opinion guy

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I hardly think that Mary Harney can be blamed for the computer system either. Incidentally that problem looks like a simple configuration issue where the wrong people were given incorrect system access roles and not an actual flaw in the system.

Then real problems here, and I also draw back to the PPARS issues, is that no-body who is actually responsible for these things actually gets fired and that's because of the power of the unions. If then actual people personally involved in these problems could be directly fired then we'd see less of them. Instead we get calls for a figure-head such as the current minister for health to resign which in no way prevents these problems from re-occuring.

Breezer wrote: »

It has been "one thing after another" for the entire Government for many years now. I'd love to see the entire Government replaced, and will vote as such, but in the meantime I don't see why Mary Harney should be singled out.

What exactly are you referring to when you say "one thing after another"? The recent X-ray 'scandal' where there was a 0.006% error rate in reading X-rays?

My response to that:
1) The Minister does not personally read X-rays
2) She should not be expected to inspect every individual doctor's X-ray reading like a teacher checking homework
3) This is a very respectable error ratio
4) Nearly every patient in a hospital will have an X-ray of some sort done. It is not practical for every single one of these to be reported on by a consultant radiologist. ALL doctors receive training at undergraduate level in how to read plain film X-rays. Similarly, a consultant cardiologist is not needed to review every ECG, a consultant in Infectious Diseases is not called every time someone has pneumonia, etc. The system generally works, and the error ratio in this case speaks for itself. The media have blown this out of all proportion.

There was another cancer misdiagnosis scandal in Portlaoise a few years back. I seem to recall Minister Harney trying, before this, to centralise cancer services in 8 centres of excellence, which could be properly resourced, rather than having substandard equipment in lots of local centres. What happened? People were up in arms. What happened when said substandard equipment caused cancer to be misdiagnosed? The same people were up in arms again.

There was an excellent article in The Irish Times yesterday by Stephen Collins which I think everyone jumping on the anti-Harney bandwagon should read: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0313/1224266197385.html

I am not a supporter of Mary Harney. I fundamentally disagree with her on co-location. I don't like the way she deflects every single question by saying "That is a matter for the HSE," but yet has not put a system in place where the HSE is answerable to the public. I do not think she should be taking such an extended trip to New Zealand at this time (although I reject the notion that, it having been planned months ago, she should now cut it short to come home and answer questions about X-rays. Anything she has to say can be said from New Zealand). I personally think James Reilly would do a far better job. But I detest this witch hunt that is now going on.

Please tell me who, from the Government side of the house, do you think would do a better job? I can't think of a single person. In fact, I can think of one, possibly two from the Opposition benches who could, and that's it. She is no worse than any other Government minister, better than a lot of them (Mary Coughlan in Health anyone?), and while she should go, it should be as part of a failed Government, and not because some Facebook warriors have decided they want a scalp.

Hmmm.
Except - its the ministers and the governments fault that our hospitals are run on outdated, under-resourced ancient systems due to lack of investment in IT infrastructure. You do realise the Tallaght is one of the few Hospitals that actually has a computerised Xray system ? Many hospitals are still using film based X ray departments. That in itself is SHOCKING and far more prone to errors of various types not to mention Xrays getting lost. And its directly down to years of a mismanaged and underfunded IT systems in our hospitals. And that is down to the government and the minister. Guarantee you this current story is the tip of a very big iceberg.

She should resign.
But she won't

scr123

If a Minister was to be sacked for everythoing that went wrong we would run out of Ministers within 3 weeks. We would have elections every 2 months and within a year politicians would be a thing of the past !

Tallaght Hospital is an independent hospital and neither the Minister nor the HSE has any role in its operation other than funding it to sum of 200m

Biggins

scr123 wrote: »

Tallaght Hospital is an independent hospital and neither the Minister nor the HSE has any role in its operation other than funding it to sum of 200m

Really 100% accurate?
I always thought Harney and her office was the head of the nations health service.
Guess there must be some other unknown head out there!
Care to name him/her - they are unknown to me.

O' and by the way, if she has nothing to do with the problem, why was she getting reports, they being sent to her, 40 letters alone, about the Tallaght hospital in December?
Strange that when you say, it has nothing to do with her!

Which is it?

lugha

opinion guy wrote: »

Hmmm.
Except - its the ministers and the governments fault that our hospitals are run on outdated, under-resourced ancient systems due to lack of investment in IT infrastructure. You do realise the Tallaght is one of the few Hospitals that actually has a computerised Xray system ? Many hospitals are still using film based X ray departments. That in itself is SHOCKING and far more prone to errors of various types not to mention Xrays getting lost. And its directly down to years of a mismanaged and underfunded IT systems in our hospitals. And that is down to the government and the minister. Guarantee you this current story is the tip of a very big iceberg.

She should resign.
But she won't

No, it isn't their fault, it is ours. Or more pertinently, it is us who decide what kind of health service we have. Of course, if someone goes on the late late show lambasting the health service and using the word "disgrace" in every second sentence, the audience will clap their hands raw. But the majority of them will have voted for low tax political parties like FF, FG and even Labour. Similarly with posts here from time to time that get thanked of the page. But when it comes to it, we are not prepared to pay for the kind of health service that we gaze enviously at in other high tax countries.
More our style to pay for a yellow pack health system which is further diminished by our parish pump thinking that the hospital in our town or region must be kept open offering a wide range of services.
You'll find plenty of failings in Harney, as you will in many politicians. But for my money she is one of the few in the last few decades who have demonstrated themselves to be of principle. She stood up to Haughey's nonsense re the anglo Irish agreement, which could very easily have finished her politically 25 years ago. And don't forget that she asked for the health portfolio and tried to do something. As opposed to most ministers, who would see that department as a way of curbing their threat to their leader and whose first and last priority would be to avoid doing anything that might sustain political damage.

Essexboy

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I hardly think that Mary Harney can be blamed for the computer system either. Incidentally that problem looks like a simple configuration issue where the wrong people were given incorrect system access roles and not an actual flaw in the system.

Then real problems here, and I also draw back to the PPARS issues, is that no-body who is actually responsible for these things actually gets fired and that's because of the power of the unions. If then actual people personally involved in these problems could be directly fired then we'd see less of them. Instead we get calls for a figure-head such as the current minister for health to resign which in no way prevents these problems from re-occuring.

Harney has a choice: sack those responsible or be sacked herself. She has repeatedly refused to take the first option so she must accept the second one.

Biggins

Principals are all fine and dandy but if your not there a lot of the time to keep your eye on the ball, when you are - your ineffective - what is the point of you still being the head!

To quote Medb Ruane of the Independent:
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/medb-ruane/medb-ruane-mary-harneys-lasting-contribution-will-be-a-twotier-health-system---and-a-monolithic-stalinistscale-hse-2098257.html

What exactly is Harney responsible for? Issues of patient-centred care echo many PD criticisms of the old health boards. With one big difference. The question of accountability seems to have shrunk since Harney took over six years ago. That includes political accountability, both the HSE and, especially, Harney's own.

For many, she's part of the problem rather than the solution. Her ideological embrace of an incentivised, public-private model belongs to a long-ago free marketeering era, now discredited. It's like trying to fit a round late 1980s peg into a third millennium hole.

Harney's lasting contribution, unfortunately, is the two-tier public/private system -- and the monolithic Stalinist-scale HSE bureaucracy. The HSE's extensive remit, along with its top-down management hierarchy, discourages critical and independent thinking, never mind dissent. Just wonder where to access reports on the 22 other children who died since 2000 while in HSE care or why the HSE won't publish them.

Match this to the endless lists of promises made (and broken) that litter the last six years -- special wards for cystic fibrosis patients, separate mental health facilities for adolescents, giving anti-cervical vaccines to all young girls, not just a single school yearful. You could go on.

Mary Harney can't be responsible for every X-ray or misdiagnosis, every misread prescription or patient lying on a trolley for way too long. But she is responsible for overseeing health services in people's interests, for shaping the system, especially after six years in the job.

For five of those years, X-rays weren't properly processed in Tallaght -- which says at least that something is badly wrong in her chain of command.

* So why is she now consistently unable to do her job?
* Why is this in-effective person still holding office?
* Why are FF backbenchers still allowing this one person drag their party down at the next election alone?

She is a one person wrecking ball to the health service now and FF future prospects.
As long as Cowen keeps her on, he and they are tainted now by association by the way!
In self-interest alone if they had any kop-on she should have been dumped a long time ago.

...even this un-educated fool can see that much.

opinion guy

Biggins wrote: »

Really 100% accurate?
I always thought Harney and her office was the head of the nations health service.
Guess there must be some other unknown head out there!
Care to name him/her - they are unknown to me.

Brendan Drumm ??

lugha wrote: »

No, it isn't their fault, it is ours. Or more pertinently, it is us who decide what kind of health service we have. Of course, if someone goes on the late late show lambasting the health service and using the word "disgrace" in every second sentence, the audience will clap their hands raw. But the majority of them will have voted for low tax political parties like FF, FG and even Labour. Similarly with posts here from time to time that get thanked of the page. But when it comes to it, we are not prepared to pay for the kind of health service that we gaze enviously at in other high tax countries.
More our style to pay for a yellow pack health system which is further diminished by our parish pump thinking that the hospital in our town or region must be kept open offering a wide range of services.

This arguement assumes perfect use of all money put into the health service. I do not accept that to be the case. Its management heavy for one thing - sack a bunch of management grades and make the ones left actually work and you would make savings(or better still move them to another department)


Edit: is it true that tallaght does not have enough radiologists ? if true that is also a resignable offence for harney imho

Biggins

opinion guy wrote: »

Brendan Drumm ??

Partly responsible - he's just not sitting at Harneys empty desk.

opinion guy wrote: »

...Its management heavy for one thing - sack a bunch of management grades and make the ones left actually work and you would make savings (or better still move them to another department

As saying my mother used to say to me springs to mind when thinking of the HSE.
"Loads of chiefs (bosses), just not enough Indians! (staff)"

lugha

opinion guy wrote: »

This arguement assumes perfect use of all money put into the health service. I do not accept that to be the case. Its management heavy for one thing - sack a bunch of management grades and make the ones left actually work and you would make savings(or better still move them to another department)

No of course the money is not all being spent efficiently, I don't suggest it is. And it is widely recognized that there is an excessive number of managers in there. But it is utterly naive to thing that the problem with excessive numbers anywhere in the public sector can be solved by sacking them. Have you not noticed that the public sector take a rather dim view of any diminishing of their working conditions and will respond, with their enormous political clout, accordingly?

johngalway

HSE is a sham invented to protect the Minister of Angola.

galwayrush

Why is no body ever responsible / held accountable for any of the cock ups that plague the running of this country, all the present government have ever done is reward the guilty with massive pay offs and pensions rather than punish them like what would happen in other countries.
In Italy, if MH didn't find whoever was responsible, and have them prosecuted, she would be the one facing trial, in China, extreme i know, the guilty would be facing the death penalty,here, if anyone is even forced to resign over this, they can look forward to a golden handshake and immunity from any prosecution.

Pittens

But the majority of them will have voted for low tax political parties like FF, FG and even Labour. Similarly with posts here from time to time that get thanked of the page. But when it comes to it, we are not prepared to pay for the kind of health service that we gaze enviously at in other high tax countries.

It's chicken and egg.

People in "High Tax" countries pay lots because they get good service, and get incremental improvements for each extra Euro spent. Ireland tripled the amount spent on the health service during the boom and all we got was better paid worker's in the health service.

There was an obsession during the boom with the percantage of GDP paid to health. This was a red-herring. Since societies dont get less healthy as they get richer - the reverse, in fact - the health service should have been able to easily get large real increases in expenditure even as the percentage of GDP spent remained the same ( if it did), and spend those increases in better delivery of health care, if it didnt then the fault lies with the service not with us.

Blaming us for the failure of the people we pay real good money to maintain the health service is slightly obscene.

Pittens

I always thought Harney and her office was the head of the nations health service.
Guess there must be some other unknown head out there!
Care to name him/her - they are unknown to me.

I believe it is Professor Drumm, the head of the HSE.

yoshytoshy

Why in the name of god is Drumm looking for an independent review of things?
What the hell is the HSE for.

Too much politics in our public service ,we vote for government and that should be the end of it. Whats with independent enquiries and strikes ,it shouldn't effect the public the way it does.

Biggins

Pittens wrote: »

I believe it is Professor Drumm, the head of the HSE.

True but he answers to who? An elected lady?
Or what is she doing in the Dail representing our nations Health services?

Pittens

True but he answers to who?

Well yes I agree that she is ultimately responsible - in the general sense - if she doesn't take action against him, or if he doesn't take action down the line.

Teh question is, is any of that possible.

The Minister is not Chief Executive, but similar to Chairman (Chairperson?) of a Private company ( the chairman is a representative of the shareholder, in the Public case this is the taxpayer).

While general decisions about direction are made by Chairmen, day to day decisions are not. And even then failures of individual workers, or local managers, are not necessarily the fault of the top executive either. Can he take action?

Can anybody be fired? If not, then why take it all out on Harney - the only one we have any say in - or is that why? We attack the part of the system which we have democratic control over, because that is all we can do.....

Pittens

The last thing I want to say is that the attacks on the HSE tend to be sensationalised, and we always hear the bad news. I have been to hospital quite recently and they were great.

Always room for improvement, though.

Biggins

Pittens wrote: »

...why take it all out on Harney...

The answer is quite simple.

* She gets all the reports, the letters, the money, the reviews, the phone-calls, the letters from those under her and so, so on and on...
* Its up to her to decide what policies to implement, what people to hire (Who hired Drum???), what people to fire? To authorise millions in payments, etc and so on...
* Its up to her to rectify the problems and seek solutions. A right damn job of that alone she has done of it so far!

If she is not doing any of this - WHAT THE HELL IS SHE DOING? - and why are we still paying this useless "pass the buck" person! :mad: