Covid 19 Part XXX-113,332 ROI(2,282 deaths) 81,251 NI (1,384 deaths) (05/01) Read OP

Happydays2020 wrote: »

We do not have enough capacity - full stop.

That does not mean it is easy to ramp up capacity - issues are systemic including recruitment, planning process, pay, vested interests, lack of funding, poor use of existing funding etc etc. One thing we need is to have a serious national question after this of how we fund our health service and how we as taxpayers will pay for this. No more kicking the can down the road.

This is only the beginning of it, and the review needs to be far wider and range over areas like why we're still using 18th century facilites in the centre of Dublin that are overcrowded, expensive to heat, don't have anything like adequte parking for staff or visitors, and have nothing like the number of low occupancy rooms to allow for isolation.

Why do we have so many administrators making sure that VHI etc get charged the right fees for every swab, way too many people in the HSE are performing functions that are totally inappropriate to Health Care, and if we had the model based on the NHS, none of that waste of time and resources would be required.

Then there's the issues relating to the absence of local facilities like health centres in the areas that have expanded like crazy in the last couple of decades, and they'd be more than helpful right now to enable mass vaccinations if we had the doses to allow that to happen.

Then there's the problem of many GP's operating in unsuitable premises, which limit their ability to deliver a more wide ranging service,and avoid the need to send so many people to a hospital for minor procedures.

It might have been OK to use a converted house 50 years ago as a GP surgery, but there is a requirement now to have a lot more services and facilities on site, and fitting them into a house is just not possible, and again, there are problems with a lack of waiting room facitlites and parking in the immediate area, and so the list goes on.

The Chinese managed to build massive facilities in a matter of weeks to facilitate having somewhere to put people with Covid, that was an emergency, but they set do and did it, how many years behind schedule is the new Childrens hospital, and let's not discuss the budget over runs or the fact that the location is a nightmare to access, and there's nothing new about these problems, it's built into the system at this stage, I know, I'm living with the consequences here, a flood relief scheme that was supposed to be finished in a year, and is still not even close to completion 5 YEARS later, and not likely to be completed for yet another year, the stress of that is mind bending.

This pandemic has shown just how badly we are being served by a wide range of state services, driving tests, driving licences, Free travel passes for the over 65's, the number of services that are still stuck in the 80's in terms of how they are delivered is only unreal, but until something like Covid comes along, we don't get to really put these services under any sort of microscope to see if they are actually fit for purpose, and the reality is that in a lot of cases, they are no longer doing what is needed.

The people on the front line are doing an amazing job to be fair to them, but they are being totally let down by a massive failure of politicians and senior management to make the hard decisions and see them through to completion.