Is this a healthy option?

swiss

From the independent

The Government has finally unveiled it's health 'strategy' for the next 5 years. It plans to feed £10bn into the health service in an overall measure to cut waiting times and improve the overall level of facilities and services.

Over the last term, the Government has certainly spent a lot of money on health. However, during that period we have seen marginal reductions in waiting list times. People are still forced to go to expensive private hospitals in order to have life-saving operations. I don't think that anyone can honestly say that the health service has been radically reformed due to improved funding. This is why I find the following claim rather dubious

The strategy also promised that by the end of 2004 no public patient will be waiting for treatment for more than three months.

Health is the nations most important asset. While I certainly think that funding of this scale will improve the health service, I feel that a fundamental restructuring of the service as a whole is warranted. I am referring to the chronic shortage of consultant doctors, leading to an abundance of overworked and underpaid junior doctors. This situation leads to many of our health professionals deciding to leave the country to find better work conditions elsewhere - or to find work in private consultancy businesses.

What I think the Government needs to do is to redress this imbalance. We all know that the number of applicants for Medical courses in third level far exceeds the number of available places.

The number of available places needs to be increased to allow more suitable candidates to become qualified doctors and nurses. Junior doctors should enjoy a shorter working week (the hours they work are - correct me if I'm wrong - in breach of EU regulations because they are too long) and more consultants must be made available to fill in the chasm that exists in that tier of the health service. Of course, the funding for the necessary facilites to ensure that they can carry out their job professionally should then be made available.

Perhaps if these measures are put in place then the governments health policy will become more than merely a sick joke.

bonkey

The Irish Times report is as being £10b over 10 years, which is far less impressive. Even worse, when you consider that its not an additional 10 billion, but rather a total of 10 billion, as opposed to the previously projected cost of 4 billion. So its really a 6 billion "initiative" and a 4 billion existing bill.

I'm thoroughly unimpressed with the details as well. There is no real reform - just some minor tweaks and a belief that throwing more money at the problem will solve it. Perhaps it approaching election time has made the govt want to appear generous with its money, as opposed to proposing something intelligent

The one thing which constantly pisses me off is hearing/reading stuff like :

"Next year 650 new beds will be provided and of these, 450 will be public."

Hello? Maybe my terminology is screwed up here, but IMHO, the government should *never* invest in private healthcare. If its private, then its privately funded, from those paying for it.

Besides, given that the major problems are in the public sector, why is it only getting approx 70% of the investment?

While every ecpert and opposing political party will line the papers wth quotes about how this is "too little, too late", or "something we proposed 10 years ago", or whatever, the sad fact remains that this appears to be a bad way to spend money, but I doubt that anyone else would actually table anything substantially better.

Sigh.

jc

Red Moose

The main problem with the health care system in Ireland is that it is chronicly understaffed where it is needed - in the hospital wards (doctors, nurses, etc., ), and is massively overpopulated from an administrative point of view.

If you look at typical adverts by hospitals, they will look for creche attentdants, accountants, janitors, canteen staff, whatever, they advertise for just about anything except medical staff.

There are something like 10000+ hospital administrative staff in the country (read it in the paper today), and with only half that number of doctors, and the government saying that 10000 nurses will be trained in the coming years, I find it hard to see why so many admin staff are needed. They actually have *nothing* to do with patient care, work 9-5 and never ever ever ever ever see a patient (and will try and **** the medical staff over if they can, such as some doctors still not being paid their full salary).

All I'll say is, it's not a goddamn charity. There is no need for 10 health boards. This country is a republic, not a federal republic because we are small enough to need just a single government. The same theory should work for health care. As it stands it such a goddamn mess on the ground floor that all the money in the world wouldn't fix it.

I guarantee you that a vast proportion of that money will end up going to yet more administration staff. We need more *medical* staff.

You have to understand that the reason doctors leave the country is because they are undertrained here, with far less practical experience to be gained compared to the UK, US or Australia. Also, up until summer 2000, you would only be paid for the first 65 hours worked, nothing after that.

The UK has a weekly maximum of 56 hours for junior doctors, which is why a lot of people are going (no exams either, unlike the US).

Also, just for the record, around 45% of doctors in Ireland are foreign, just so you have an idea of just how badly off we are with so much reliance on non-nationals (if they decide to pack up and go home, Ireland's health care system is truly ****ered).

bonkey

Originally posted by Red Moose
The UK has a weekly maximum of 56 hours for junior doctors, which is why a lot of people are going (no exams either, unlike the US).

The UK has no exams? I thought they do....and I'm pretty sure Occy has taken exams in the UK.

Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of Surgeons both definitely run exams....

Also, just for the record, around 45% of doctors in Ireland are foreign, just so you have an idea of just how badly off we are with so much reliance on non-nationals (if they decide to pack up and go home, Ireland's health care system is truly ****ered).

Isnt it ironic...

Irish doctors go abroad for whatever reason, leaving a shortage of doctors in Ireland. Foreign doctors come to Ireland, leaving their native countries - mostly for the same reasons. End result - a lot of the "bottom tier" nations end up with huge medical shortages, which is ultimately supported by scporting doctors from the "top-tier" nations......thus closing the loop.

Maybe if the doctors all stayed in their own countries, everyone would have better medical services

jc

Xterminator

Originally posted by bonkey

"Next year 650 new beds will be provided and of these, 450 will be public."

Hello? Maybe my terminology is screwed up here, but IMHO, the government should *never* invest in private healthcare. If its private, then its privately funded, from those paying for it.

I think you have to understand the practicality of situation.

Those who pay private health plans are infact reducing the amout of money the exchequer needs to pay into healthcare.

Those who purchase private healthcare, cannot opt out of paying some tax.( Thus the private patient is in fact a public private patient. )

Also by combining the private and public services within 1 hospital, the hospital benifits from both revenue streams, allowing them to offer better care (in theory) to both sets of patients.

If private patients had to be treated seperately in more expensive priviate hospitals, because you cannot allow any public money into the systems, then the expensive and upto date equiptment such hospitals would have, could not be used on public patients, and the private facilitys that may not be in use all the time would lay dormant.

X

Red Moose

Originally posted by bonkey


The UK has no exams? I thought they do....and I'm pretty sure Occy has taken exams in the UK.

Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of Surgeons both definitely run exams....

jc

Ah sorry about that. I meant regarding applying for posts initially say post-Intern year. There is a PLAB exam at that level if you are non-EU, or non-English speaking (not too sure really here, but it's not like applying to the US where you need to do 5 exams at a cost of over $3000, plus travel and living, applications which can cost $5000+ before you're done).

The MRCP and FRCS exams are sure there just like here, but for post-grad studies. I was really referring to the ease at which a newly qualified doctor can leave before they even consider doing the MRCPs or something which is maybe 2-3 years later.