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General Irish Government discussion thread [See Post 1805]
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blackwhite wrote: »The statement from, and actions of, the Beacon that I referenced are evidence that they certainly didn’t see it as a good deal.
The government could have drafted in that hospital whether it was part of an association or not, and probably would because of its location.
They paid for every bed, so where is the evidence that they would have earned more?0 -
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blackwhite wrote: »The Beacon hospital withdrawing from the Private Hospitals Association, and stating that in future they’ll negotiate their own deals, doesn’t exactly support the conspiracies that this was a generous deal for private hospitals.
I'm not sure if you're aware of the history between Denis O'Brien (beacons owner) and FG governments regarding various state contracts. However if you are aware of the history, you'd be very naive to think that DOB isn't getting a very good deal. It would also be pretty naive to think beacon pulling out is because they got a poor deal, it's more likely evidence of the fact that DOB's relationship to FG will ensure he gets an even better deal 'negotiating' on his own behalf.
We're paying 400% more for private beds then the UK are, sounds like a pretty good deal for DOB and co.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfPayEquality/status/12649295261628825650 -
We are not paying 400% more for private beds than the UK are. The cost per occupied bed is 400% more because the emergency, excess capacity did not need to be utilised. People are taking the entire cost of the private hospitals - which is being provided at cost price, with zero profit for the hospitals, and dividing it by the number of occupied beds which are being deliberately kept low. It is wilful distortion of the truth and borderline conspiracy theory nonsense.0
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I'm not sure if you're aware of the history between Denis O'Brien (beacons owner) and FG governments regarding various state contracts. However if you are aware of the history, you'd be very naive to think that DOB isn't getting a very good deal. It would also be pretty naive to think beacon pulling out is because they got a poor deal, it's more likely evidence of the fact that DOB's relationship to FG will ensure he gets an even better deal 'negotiating' on his own behalf.
We're paying 400% more for private beds then the UK are, sounds like a pretty good deal for DOB and co.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfPayEquality/status/1264929526162882565
The 400% is per bed used - not per bed made available. It’s been widely pointed out over the past week, yet for some strange reason we have propaganda peddlers who are determined to keep repeating misleading numbers.
Most reasonable people see the fact that we didn’t need to call on many private beds as a positive - yet we’ve a few determined to try and paint the fact we did a better job than the UK in suppressing serious cases as a negative thing :rolleyes:0 -
blackwhite wrote: »The 400% is per bed used - not per bed made available. It’s been widely pointed out over the past week, yet for some strange reason we have propaganda peddlers who are determined to keep repeating misleading numbers.
Most reasonable people see the fact that we didn’t need to call on many private beds as a positive - yet we’ve a few determined to try and paint the fact we did a better job than the UK in suppressing serious cases as a negative thing :rolleyes:
Where did you get that information?
The government REFUSED to publish the agreement with the private hospitals, have you seen the agreement or have a link to it?0 -
Aren't we the taxpayers paying CityWest 25 million for use as a respite for Covid patients currently only 26 people in at the minute what genius 'negotiated' that on our behalf? More scandalous gifting of public money to their rich mates by FG.0
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Where did you get that information?
The government REFUSED to publish the agreement with the private hospitals, have you seen the agreement or have a link to it?
It was raised in the Dail debates.
The only people latching onto the per-bed-used numbers are those trying to push their same old "everything is terrible agenda", or people too thick to understand the difference between cost per bed used and cost per bed available.
The contract is for costs incurred only, and it's been repeated stated in the Dail and in the media that all costs submitted will be subject to audit to ensure there's nothing additional charged.
Would you have preferred the Dept of Health didn't add any capacity to the system, and just crossed their fingers and hoped that the public hospitals wouldn't be pushed beyond their capacity
Or maybe you were hoping for higher numbers of severe cases so that the cost per used bed might look a bit lower?0 -
Aren't we the taxpayers paying CityWest 25 million for use as a respite for Covid patients currently only 26 people in at the minute what genius 'negotiated' that on our behalf? More scandalous gifting of public money to their rich mates by FG.
Yea and the owner bought it outright for 29mln but that's FG's modus operandi, funelling tax payer money to uber wealthy parasites. The hotel would have been empty for the past few minutes, so the government was in a great negotiating position on behalf of the tax payer. The fact that they didn't take advantage speaks volumes.0 -
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blackwhite wrote: »It was raised in the Dail debates.
The only people latching onto the per-bed-used numbers are those trying to push their same old "everything is terrible agenda", or people too thick to understand the difference between cost per bed used and cost per bed available.
The contract is for costs incurred only, and it's been repeated stated in the Dail and in the media that all costs submitted will be subject to audit to ensure there's nothing additional charged.
Would you have preferred the Dept of Health didn't add any capacity to the system, and just crossed their fingers and hoped that the public hospitals wouldn't be pushed beyond their capacity
Or maybe you were hoping for higher numbers of severe cases so that the cost per used bed might look a bit lower?
Will that be the auditors that audited the FAI or the ones who audited Anglo Irish bank?
My preference would be to take this opportunity to nationalise these hospitals.0 -
My preference would be to take this opportunity to nationalise these hospitals.
Which, given they are being rented at cost, would ultimately entail the exact same price but with no way out of it. They are also considering doing exactly this.
Unless you mean nationalising them without paying for them which would be an interesting approach.0 -
Will that be the auditors that audited the FAI or the ones who audited Anglo Irish bank?
My preference would be to take this opportunity to nationalise these hospitals.
Explains a lot TBH - trying to shoehorn everything to fit a political ideology tends to lead to the actual facts being discarded whenever they don’t suit
*Also appears you don’t understand the different between a cost audit and an audit of financial statements.0 -
Which, given they are being rented at cost, would ultimately entail the exact same price but with no way out of it. They are also considering doing exactly this.
Unless you mean nationalising them without paying for them which would be an interesting approach.
No, the current approach entails renting them, I'd advocate for the government to purchase them. So it'd be a once off payment that would enhance the states infrastructure.0 -
blackwhite wrote: »
*Also appears you don’t understand the different between a cost audit and an audit of financial statements.
That's a very strange interpretation of what I said above. I didn't make any comment about any type of audit. I do believe there's concern over the credibility of such auditors based on past experience, I feel this is merely an exercise to improve the optics of the deal.
Do you think the Irish tax payer is currently getting good value from the deal struck to rent the private hospitals?0 -
blackwhite wrote: »It was raised in the Dail debates.
The only people latching onto the per-bed-used numbers are those trying to push their same old "everything is terrible agenda", or people too thick to understand the difference between cost per bed used and cost per bed available.
The contract is for costs incurred only, and it's been repeated stated in the Dail and in the media that all costs submitted will be subject to audit to ensure there's nothing additional charged.
Would you have preferred the Dept of Health didn't add any capacity to the system, and just crossed their fingers and hoped that the public hospitals wouldn't be pushed beyond their capacity
Or maybe you were hoping for higher numbers of severe cases so that the cost per used bed might look a bit lower?
Hold on there.
The total number of beds that the private hospital were providing was approximately 2000.
For that Ireland was paying approx €112 million per month.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/hse-wants-to-retain-most-private-hospital-capacity-secured-1.4261341The agreement saw the State effectively take control of 2,000 beds in nearly 20 hospitals as well as theatre and diagnostic facilities ahead of a feared surge in demand for care due to Covid-19. The deal has been criticised due to the cost and because significant numbers of private hospital beds remained unused.
Simple arithmetic gives you a figure of €56,000 per month per bed.
Or €1,866.66 per night.
You are talking pure baloney, If you have figures post them with a link.
Are you suggesting that the cost of a private hospital bed without any additional costs (surgeries, physio, etc) is more that 1,866 euro per night?
Are you suggesting the Irish Times got it totally wrong?
How were private hospitals going to operate normally with wards that included Covid positive patients?
The reason the state had to book ALL the beds was it would be impossible for a private hospital to function normally if it had Covid positive patients. For that they were charged for all beds and they would have to pay any additional costs incurred if those beds were used.
The simple fact is the government booked all available beds because they simply did not know how many would be required. Thankfully most of them were not needed. In the circumstance of the time personally I think it was the correct move.
But as I stated in an earlier post, it does beg the question why having paid for all these surplus beds and realising within a month or so they would not be required, why were not put to use? Had they used them to segregate those with covid from the nursing homes would it not be reasonable to assume less elderly residents in the nursing homes would have been infected and many less of those dying?0 -
Yea and the owner bought it outright for 29mln but that's FG's modus operandi, funelling tax payer money to uber wealthy parasites. The hotel would have been empty for the past few minutes, so the government was in a great negotiating position on behalf of the tax payer. The fact that they didn't take advantage speaks volumes.
Unbelievable paying nearly the purchase price to rent it for 6 months with no break clause I wonder which minister well end up on the board of this company?
Its truly sickening especially come October it will be one of these incompetents sitting there po faced telling us we're in dire financial straits due to Covid and we all have to tighten our belts and pay more tax etc all the while 13billion sits in an escrow account that we wont claim.0 -
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Hold on there.
The total number of beds that the private hospital were providing was approximately 2000.
For that Ireland was paying approx €112 million per month.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/hse-wants-to-retain-most-private-hospital-capacity-secured-1.4261341
Simple arithmetic gives you a figure of €56,000 per month per bed.
Or €1,866.66 per night.
You are talking pure baloney, If you have figures post them with a link.
Are you suggesting that the cost of a private hospital bed without any additional costs (surgeries, physio, etc) is more that 1,866 euro per night?
Are you suggesting the Irish Times got it totally wrong?
How were private hospitals going to operate normally with wards that included Covid positive patients?
The reason the state had to book ALL the beds was it would be impossible for a private hospital to function normally if it had Covid positive patients. For that they were charged for all beds and they would have to pay any additional costs incurred if those beds were used.
The simple fact is the government booked all available beds because they simply did not know how many would be required. Thankfully most of them were not needed. In the circumstance of the time personally I think it was the correct move.
But as I stated in an earlier post, it does beg the question why having paid for all these surplus beds and realising within a month or so they would not be required, why were not put to use? Had they used them to segregate those with covid from the nursing homes would it not be reasonable to assume less elderly residents in the nursing homes would have been infected and many less of those dying?
From what I gather the private hospitals provided medical help to people for treatment for non covid, which from a friends point of view this was brill as his dad was suddenly in seeing and getting treatment from all the top consultants
If Covid was in a nursing home then lockdown for everyone in the home had to happen. Otherwise you risk spreading. You do understand the disease and it can take days to show up?
You move someone from nursing home to private hospital, they have COVID and that hospital is now gone, so you now have lost another hospital to look after non covid patients
Plus for elderly the stress of moving alone could cause more damage if they didn’t have covid and end up with some poor person dying
I am baffled by some of the comments around the private hospitals, if they didn’t hire them people would be up in arms. When they did take over them people are up in arms
It’s about time people grew up. The petty point scoring on every topic is gone beyond a joke. It really is damned if you do and damned if you don’t0 -
Maybe people should post up here what they would have done different?0
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Shefwedfan wrote: »
It’s about time people grew up. The petty point scoring on every topic is gone beyond a joke. It really is damned if you do and damned if you don’t
That's politics isn't it, in a nutshell.0 -
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Bishop of hope wrote: »That's politics isn't it, in a nutshell.
The headline-grabbing, grandstanding stuff yes , the actual real work, no. It's how things get done.0 -
Currently looking over at the convention centre, its being checked by Gardai most of today, sniffer dogs and plenty of Gardai going in and out. Its to be the venue for a full Dail sitting so maybe we're getting close on something.0
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Shefwedfan wrote: »From what I gather the private hospitals provided medical help to people for treatment for non covid, which from a friends point of view this was brill as his dad was suddenly in seeing and getting treatment from all the top consultants
If Covid was in a nursing home then lockdown for everyone in the home had to happen. Otherwise you risk spreading. You do understand the disease and it can take days to show up?
You move someone from nursing home to private hospital, they have COVID and that hospital is now gone, so you now have lost another hospital to look after non covid patients
Plus for elderly the stress of moving alone could cause more damage if they didn’t have covid and end up with some poor person dying
I am baffled by some of the comments around the private hospitals, if they didn’t hire them people would be up in arms. When they did take over them people are up in arms
It’s about time people grew up. The petty point scoring on every topic is gone beyond a joke. It really is damned if you do and damned if you don’t
Im not disputing whether a hospital can function normally if it has covid patients. Both the government and the private hospitals were fully aware of that outcome if beds were used. THe government agreed to pay for all beds, used or unused, the hospitals agreed to take the states money for those beds.
Yet the government choose that option, paid for all the beds despite blackwhite making wild and unsubstantiated claims they did not.
What to you would be more important, saving lives or allowing minor surgeries continue that could have been delayed or transferred to another private hospital?
Those elderly patients with covid simply could not get the care they required in private nursing homes. I would sooner they experience a little bit of stress and actually be in the care of experienced professionals with knowledge and training regarding transferable diseases and very strict working practises that mitigate against their spread.
Also that measure is not just about giving care to those with covid, it is to protect those that did not yet have it. Segregation is the first thing that is done when dealing with a transmittable disease and its why quarantine exists and is usually the first measure put in place when dealing with a highly infectious or transmittable disease.
I myself am waiting surgery on a torn tendon or ligament on my arm. I haven't been able to lift it above horizontal for more than two months now, nearly three, but I certainly would not have complained if told it would have to wait longer because beds are being used to segregate elderly residents in nursing homes who have very grim chances of surviving covid infection.
I am getting concerned that if it goes on too long this minor disability will be permanent, but such is life. I would sooner see that than people dying needlessly.
And as stated previously I agree the government made the right move to secure additional bed capacity in hospitals. My issue is having paid for it, not using it.0 -
Hold on there.
The total number of beds that the private hospital were providing was approximately 2000.
For that Ireland was paying approx €112 million per month.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/hse-wants-to-retain-most-private-hospital-capacity-secured-1.4261341
Simple arithmetic gives you a figure of €56,000 per month per bed.
Or €1,866.66 per night.
You are talking pure baloney, If you have figures post them with a link.
Are you suggesting that the cost of a private hospital bed without any additional costs (surgeries, physio, etc) is more that 1,866 euro per night?
Are you suggesting the Irish Times got it totally wrong?
How were private hospitals going to operate normally with wards that included Covid positive patients?
The reason the state had to book ALL the beds was it would be impossible for a private hospital to function normally if it had Covid positive patients. For that they were charged for all beds and they would have to pay any additional costs incurred if those beds were used.
The simple fact is the government booked all available beds because they simply did not know how many would be required. Thankfully most of them were not needed. In the circumstance of the time personally I think it was the correct move.
But as I stated in an earlier post, it does beg the question why having paid for all these surplus beds and realising within a month or so they would not be required, why were not put to use? Had they used them to segregate those with covid from the nursing homes would it not be reasonable to assume less elderly residents in the nursing homes would have been infected and many less of those dying?
Quite ironic to be accusing others of "baloney" when you are playing fast and loose with the numbers yourself.
The €112m is for the month of April, and the first week of May (from the article you linked). That's €45k per month, or €1,513 per night per bed.
Inflating the numbers by 20% to try and prove your point seems pretty dishonest TBH.
And of course - those costs are the entire hospital running costs divided by the number of beds, not the actual bed cost itself.
It'll be interesting to see how much, if any, overcharging gets caught by the review.
The fact that the Beacon have made such a public show of how unhappy they are with the deal suggests that they weren't exactly creaming it in from the deal0 -
Yet the government choose that option, paid for all the beds despite blackwhite making wild and unsubstantiated claims they did not.
Please quote where I made that claim? You seem quite fond of painting falsehoods about what others have posted :rolleyes:
I stated that the cost per bed comparisons showing Ireland at 4 times higher than the UK were inaccurate, because the calculations that result in the 4 times higher number were based on the per bed used costs.
I never stated that we were only paying for used beds.
Debate the points made all you want - but stop lying about what was actually posted0 -
Im not disputing whether a hospital can function normally if it has covid patients. Both the government and the private hospitals were fully aware of that outcome if beds were used. THe government agreed to pay for all beds, used or unused, the hospitals agreed to take the states money for those beds.
Yet the government choose that option, paid for all the beds despite blackwhite making wild and unsubstantiated claims they did not.
What to you would be more important, saving lives or allowing minor surgeries continue that could have been delayed or transferred to another private hospital?
Those elderly patients with covid simply could not get the care they required in private nursing homes. I would sooner they experience a little bit of stress and actually be in the care of experienced professionals with knowledge and training regarding transferable diseases and very strict working practises that mitigate against their spread.
Also that measure is not just about giving care to those with covid, it is to protect those that did not yet have it. Segregation is the first thing that is done when dealing with a transmittable disease and its why quarantine exists and is usually the first measure put in place when dealing with a highly infectious or transmittable disease.
I myself am waiting surgery on a torn tendon or ligament on my arm. I haven't been able to lift it above horizontal for more than two months now, nearly three, but I certainly would not have complained if told it would have to wait longer because beds are being used to segregate elderly residents in nursing homes who have very grim chances of surviving covid infection.
I am getting concerned that if it goes on too long this minor disability will be permanent, but such is life. I would sooner see that than people dying needlessly.
And as stated previously I agree the government made the right move to secure additional bed capacity in hospitals. My issue is having paid for it, not using it.
What was your plan? bring Covid into every hospital in Ireland? wipe out as many people as possible just because the government had paid for the beds?
The people in nursing homes are supposed to be cared for by health professionals. These people have qualifications. They would have as a basic a Health Care Professional qualification. They should be able to understand the basic of an infection. It was mentioned they didn't realize to not throw away gloves from one patient to another. How bloody stupid are these people? how stupid are the management team?
The guy who came out saying he sent an email and it was all the governments fault should be sacked on the spot. This bulls**t attitude in Ireland to just cover your ass and never do anything else is really annoying.
I seen people doing their shopping that realized after shopping to throw away gloves.
Moving these people causes distress. So you want to move people who could have the virus and end up killing them anyway?
Moving old people around from x to y to z would only increase the death rate.
Im not saying the government got everything right, but people have jumped onto the private hospitals and really are coming out with ludicrous suggestions which would have only caused more wide spread infection in Ireland0 -
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Shefwedfan wrote: »What was your plan? bring Covid into every hospital in Ireland? wipe out as many people as possible just because the government had paid for the beds?
The people in nursing homes are supposed to be cared for by health professionals. These people have qualifications. They would have as a basic a Health Care Professional qualification. They should be able to understand the basic of an infection. It was mentioned they didn't realize to not throw away gloves from one patient to another. How bloody stupid are these people? how stupid are the management team?
The guy who came out saying he sent an email and it was all the governments fault should be sacked on the spot. This bulls**t attitude in Ireland to just cover your ass and never do anything else is really annoying.
I seen people doing their shopping that realized after shopping to throw away gloves.
Moving these people causes distress. So you want to move people who could have the virus and end up killing them anyway?
Moving old people around from x to y to z would only increase the death rate.
Im not saying the government got everything right, but people have jumped onto the private hospitals and really are coming out with ludicrous suggestions which would have only caused more wide spread infection in Ireland
You are not a stupid perdon so why ask stupid questions.
Obviously there was no need to use ALL the private hospitals, surely the sensible thing to do was use them in sequence. As they reach capacity in one use the next. In the meantime almost all the private hospitals could have continued to perform day surgeries and elective operations for both public and private patients. Unfortunately they could not even do that as the agreement precluded them from doing that.
So if the private hospitals were not able to use those empty beds, do you not think it sensible that the government utilised those beds, for things such as segregation, day surgeries and minor elective operations being that they decided to pre-pay and pre-book for all those beds?
Basically the government feck'd up in a truly massive way.
They were absolutely right to have used their power to commandeer hospital beds as they were required and make the private hospitals be prepared to turn over beds to the public health service at short notice, but to block book them as they did and then have those bed sat there totally unused by both the private and public health service was not only a complete waste of money, it was also counter productive.
The private hospitals could have continued to provide short term health care to private patients and at full cost to the government for public patients as well. Instead we had the majority of the beds in private hospitals left empty and not used at all.
Do you see my point? I m not arguing that the government should not have had the option to commandeer all those beds, my argument is that they booked all those beds and did not use them, and prevented the private hospitals from using them too even though they could easily have cleared beds within two or three days notice.0
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