Leo Varadkar resigns as Taoiseach

Got to disagree. I think the growth is because of the perceived appearance of the government not giving a crap about Irish People and the dismissive way people are dealt with by government representatives and supporters.

Stephen.

Donnelly was lambasting Harris in the Dail over the trolley crisis in 2019. Harris' failures eventually brought down the government.

Now the current health minister is only allowed out to speak on special occasions. Where does he be hiding?

He is like Neal Richmond, aiming to become the world hide and seek champion.

What a bleak view for those who 'live outside the M50'. What you are inferring is that investment should only go into the large urban areas. For example we live near enough two largish towns and yet you'd still have to travel 50 miles to get to a decent hospital, so clearly these towns are not in your head.

So what happens when you and your ilk want to go off on your w/e break in Ireland? With that vision, you'll find no services, no shops, cafes, pubs, few people except our new immigrant friends that your buddies are keen on importing and distributing to the far shores.

But then it's quite likely yous wouldn't be bothered going on a w/e or weeks holiday here. Sure why wouldn't you hop on a metro out to the airport, jet off and spend yer money elsewhere. There's more to be being a patriotic citizen that waffling on about constitutional matters and quoting international law..

You cant fire civil servants for lack of performance. When was the last time a minister actually fired someone?

Not what I said. Very happy to see largish towns built up. I would ban one-off housing in the countryside. The council could alternatively provide sites or buildings suitable for renovation instead within the existing environs of towns and villages.

That brings critical mass to villages and towns for services. As it is, those living in one-off housing frequently bypass the smaller villages and towns to head for the bigger places.

Ah yes the politicians loved the creation of the HSE so that they could pass the buck unlike the old days when local politicians representing the political parties had to explain what they were doing on health boards.

Hospitals much like schools, much like prisons haven't kept pace with population increases.

Someone recently highluighted that we may now have less hospital beds than we had in 80s/90s.

And what has happened to our population.

Well for one it has increased despite how some think that immigrants don't add to it.

And secondly we are having a higher aging population.

Also as far as I know, someone can verify this, we have higher number of people per GP/doctor than other countries and a higher number of people per hospital bed.

But of course who cares about that we have a great many employed in the HSE/HIQA/Tusla bureaucracy.

It is sad that people try protect politicians, especially government ministers, and absolve them of blame for public sector fookups.

They obviously never subscribe to Harry Truman's old desk sign.🙄

But we have the biggest ratio of nurses to population. Goes to show there isn't a simple answer.

You need less hospital beds if you have efficient systems that discharge people effectively. Efficiency in Sweden and Finland means that they need less beds.

If our doctors and nurses worked as efficiently and effectively as those in Sweden and Finland, our bed numbers would be fine.

One of housing is being used to deflect from how badly the government are handling health. How bad does it have to get before the government cheerleaders admit the governments handling of health is atrocious.

And how many of those nurses are now actually managers ?

PS what about the 100k plus refugee and asylum seeker/IPA immigrants that arrived in last couple of years that are not contributing to the tax take, but yet are availing of medical cards, free healthcare, etc?

How many of that 100k plus work in healthcare?

Funny how when it comes to public spending some people conveniently forget the immigrants that add no financial value, but just take out of the pot.

Ah so it is all the fault of the doctors and nurses.

If you get sick or in an accident I hope you tell the front line staff treating you that.

PS I have a couple of relatives that would like a little word with you.

That is another aspect of the problem all right, but even if we had 100,000 step-down beds, there would be nobody discharged on a Sunday.

Nonsense.

The fact that life expectancy has increased means that the A&E experience must be better, otherwise, we would all be dying younger.

A couple of stats stand out in regard to A&E:

"30-day mortality after stroke was 6.3% (OECD average 7.8%), and 5.4% after AMI (OECD average 6.8%)"

The problems with A&E relate more to the type of issues that people go to A&E for. We need better education in that regard, though I doubt that the phenonemon of young lads throwing punches on a weekend night and clogging up A&E can be put down solely to education.

Other states are interesting:

"Ireland spends $6047 per capita on health, more than the OECD average of $4986 (USD PPP)"

There is not a problem with funding provided by the government then.

"There are 4.0 practising doctors per 1,000 population (OECD average 3.7); and 12.7 practising nurses (OECD average 9.2)"

That money pays for plenty of doctors and nurses.

So the government is handing over a lot of money, more than the OECD average to the HSE, and the HSE is hiring a lot of doctors and nurses, more than the OECD average, draw your own conclusions, but the problems in the health service aren't about the amount of money from government, and neither are they about the number of doctors and nurses employed by the HSE.

As someone working in healthcare at the moment the most common delays in discharging medically ‘well’ patients are

1. lack of /rehab care beds
2. patient preference to return home when a nursing home might be the quicker option. If they don’t want NH care then there are a lot of adaptations that need to be made, involving a lot of staff (medical social workers, physios, OTs). If you’re lucky they all meet once per week to get on the same page. If a patient accepts nursing home care then waiting for fairdeal paperwork is the hold up.
3. waiting for outstanding investigations or imaging. Where I worked it was not uncommon for inpatients to wait up to a week for a non urgent imaging request. We would ask these patients if they would prefer to stay in hospital or would they rather wait 12-18 months if they left.

if a patient was well and able to leave the hospital to safe accommodation on a Sunday then the doctors would discharge them on a Sunday. Without a doubt.

I entirely agree regarding there needing to be better public education about what is appropriate to present to A&E with and what is not. However we would first need to increase the numbers of GPs practicing in the country. It is almost impossible to register at a GP practice as a new patient now and the previously thought ‘brilliant quality of life’ that drew doctors to GP is a mirage. Huge insurance premiums, frequent litigation letters, patient lists far beyond what is possible. They don’t feel they’re doing a good job because there is just not enough of them. Without good primary care tertiary care is overrun and useless. They rely on each other.