Irish Health Care - Through An Amreican's Eyes

gdkaufmann

Granted, I'm new here.

http://anamericanindublin.com/2011/10/06/take-two-and-call%e2%80%a6-a-look-at-irish-health-care/

ZYX

You don't need private insurance in this country. All out patient visits, radiology and pathology fees are free to everyone irrespective of income. Hospital stays are almost free to everyone. You have to pay a maximum fee of €75 per night in hospital up to a maximum of €750 per family per year. Any money you pay up to this maximum €750 is tax deductible at 20% tax rate. This is irrespective of how much you earn

GP visits are only free to people with medical cards. Others have to pay but again the amount you pay is tax deductible.

Citizensinformation.ie has the information you are looking for. I am surprised a google search did not lead you there.

Sid_Justice

I found the tone of your blog really really obnoxious.

RobFowl

TBF I studied here and have worked in the Irish health care system for 10 years (after 10 years in the NHS) and I'm still working out exactly how the system here works.
Suppose the bottom line is that the system still manages to provide the care needed to the sickest people certainly at the onset of illness anyway.

Riveta

Hmph, I'm an interesting persepective I suppose. Can't say I was too imprsssed with the statement about Nurses sick days.

Coming from a person that clearly has no knowledge of how healthcare is delivered or how healthcare system work (or not work) and an even patchier knowledge of what Nursing is like in this country I'm very disenclined to agree.

If the poster would like to follow me around on a 13hr shift I'd be happy to show her some of the reasons that Nurses might be inclined to call in sick.

There's a huge body of international research that suggests that Nurses on general wards should ONLY be caring four patients and no more. For every extra patient that a Nurse takes on patient mortality rates increase exponentially.

In most Irish hospitals Nurses are taking on from 6 to up to 9/10 patients on any one shift.

I have been so swaped and overwhelmed in work that I haven't had a food/drink/toilet break for up to 9 hours. I've had to care for up to 3-4 four patients who should have been placed in a High Depedancy Unit but were dumped on a general ward as there was a lack of beds. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how this level of work COULDN'T cause someone to fall ill.

So if you're so concerned about the number of sick days that Nurses take why don't you try and look at the facts instead of making broad assumptions that EVERYONE working in the public sector is some kind of lazy f£$%wit reaping the rewards on the back of the rest of the public.

Riveta

I realise that was a little ranty and somewhat off topic. Apologies!

amjon.

ZYX wrote: »

You don't need private insurance in this country

If you don't mind being on the bottem tier of a two tier health system.

UndercoverSpy

Riveta wrote: »

Hmph, I'm an interesting persepective I suppose. Can't say I was too imprsssed with the statement about Nurses sick days.

Coming from a person that clearly has no knowledge of how healthcare is delivered or how healthcare system work (or not work) and an even patchier knowledge of what Nursing is like in this country I'm very disenclined to agree.

If the poster would like to follow me around on a 13hr shift I'd be happy to show her some of the reasons that Nurses might be inclined to call in sick.

There's a huge body of international research that suggests that Nurses on general wards should ONLY be caring four patients and no more. For every extra patient that a Nurse takes on patient mortality rates increase exponentially.

In most Irish hospitals Nurses are taking on from 6 to up to 9/10 patients on any one shift.

I have been so swaped and overwhelmed in work that I haven't had a food/drink/toilet break for up to 9 hours. I've had to care for up to 3-4 four patients who should have been placed in a High Depedancy Unit but were dumped on a general ward as there was a lack of beds. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how this level of work COULDN'T cause someone to fall ill.

So if you're so concerned about the number of sick days that Nurses take why don't you try and look at the facts instead of making broad assumptions that EVERYONE working in the public sector is some kind of lazy f£$%wit reaping the rewards on the back of the rest of the public.

You're having a laugh right?? Nurses' sick leave is way up there. Long documented. Ask your DON.

6-9 patients? No break for 9 hours? Come on, we all know that's a rariety. Sick patients? Yikes :eek:

Have you any idea how many patients many doctors are RESPONSIBLE for in a day? Have you any idea how many hours many go without your food/drink/toilet break? Why do you think they eat all your chocolates?! Have you any idea of what their sick leave is to yous? Answer = 99% less. Ask your DON/HR Director.

Reality check.

Mucco

gdkaufmann wrote: »

Granted, I'm new here.

http://anamericanindublin.com/2011/10/06/take-two-and-call%e2%80%a6-a-look-at-irish-health-care/

Hi there,

It's interesting to get your view. I don't think the idea that Irish people don't know much about the health system is unusual, because most wouldn't have used it. The basic facts are pretty easy to find - there's an in-depth overview here:
Irish Health System - this is edited by Elias Mossialos who's now the Greek government spokesman!

Unfortunately, insurance is needed to guarantee timely access, but, unlike the states, there is risk equalisation, so everyone pays the same.

Riveta

UndercoverSpy wrote: »

6-9 patients? No break for 9 hours? Come on, we all know that's a rariety. Sick patients? Yikes :eek:

Well you obviously are of the belief that I'm exaggerating or spoofing or some such. There's no point in getting into an argument about that. I'm telling you as a Nurse that they're the kinds of conditions that I work in. Simple as.

UndercoverSpy wrote: »

Have you any idea how many patients many doctors are RESPONSIBLE for in a day?

Are you some how implying that Nurses aren't responsible for their practice? Just do a quick google search of An bord altranais and get back to me.

I'm resonsible for every single Nursing intervention that I carry out on my shift. It's my license. My PIN. No one elses.

Also I don't understand why everytime a Nurse complains about their working conditions they're immediatly compared to the Medics.

My original post had nothing to do with Doctors, they have their own professional issues and crap working conditions that they need to try to work through themselves.
I'm not basing my opinions or assessment of my working conditions on that of Doctors. It's nothing to do with it.

sam34

ok, let's NOT turn this into a doctors v nurses debate.

Riveta

My point entirely!

lonestargirl

gdkaufmann wrote: »

Granted, I'm new here.

http://anamericanindublin.com/2011/10/06/take-two-and-call%e2%80%a6-a-look-at-irish-health-care/

I'm an Irish person who works in healthcare and has lived in the US for a few years so I can approach both systems from either side of the fence.

From your blog post it seems like you had health insurance in the US, this made you one of the lucky ones. 16.7% of people had no insurance in 2009 (in some states this was much higher, 25% in Tx). Add to that the people who are underinsured (often with a high deductible so in reality they are paying out-of-pocket for all routine medical expenses). I too was one of the lucky ones with great health insurance, costing my employer $450 a month, and my experience of being a patient was very good.

However I have seen the other side too. Many of my friends were in residency programs and these often serve the county hospitals. I heard tales of people turning up with the hospital circled on Google maps saying "the other hospital told me I need my gallbladder out, but I don't have insurance". This hospital offered 'compassionate' dialysis, i.e. uninsured people who couldn't access regular dialysis would just turn up when they got really sick and then get treated. Is this really how healthcare should be in a 1st world country?

From a professional point of view I work in radiation therapy and participate in a number of professional online discussion groups. It amazing how much of the conversation is linked to billing, "I want to install xyz technology but my admin want figures on how much it'll be used and what the reimbursment is". A classic RT example of this is breast RT, in Europe we give most people 40Gy in 15 treatments in the US they give 50Gy in 25. Radiobiologically these are equivalent for tumour control and there is data from the UK showing the long-term toxicity is similar. So why give someone 5 weeks of treatment instead of 3? Insurance pays per fraction (treatment) for radiotherapy even though there is the same amount of physics, dosimetry and QA in 15 treaments as there is in 25.

I'm not pretending that our health service is perfect, far from it. The biggest issues are with 'routine' services, colonoscopies etc. If (God forbid) I collapsed on the street tomorrow I would be rushed to hospital and taken care of. Once you are in the system and have a diagnosis many aspects of the health service do work - you are certainly wasting your money if you go private for radiation therapy, once you are booked in it's exactly the same public or private.

I'm not long back from the US and I don't currently have health insurance in Ireland. It's not something that keeps me awake at night, on the other hand I wouldn't even dream of setting foot in the US without insurance.

spagboll

spagboll wrote: »

my opinion as a medic student - nurses and doctors work hard - other employees take the piss

Are you including Medical Scientists, Physiotherapists, Pharmacists, Radiographers, SLT's and any other AHP in the 'other employees take the piss' category? :eek:

I hope not.

OP - granted you're new here as you say yourself, but perhaps you could hold off on posting a detailed blog until you're here a bit longer?Absolutely, there is room for improvement in every area of Irish health care. It's not properly the fault of the frontline staff though, there's so much tied up in administration and The Suits who have full control of the purse strings, granted the country is broke.

foreverandever

I agree, there's plenty of other hard working physios, etc and definitely some lazy nurses and doctors too! Saying they take the piss is a bit much

spagboll

i take back my comment, sorry guys