Sinn Fein - looming health service disaster?

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

This kind of thing is bollix. And comparing it with the recession is not valid either, people might accept a cut for a couple of years caused by economic circumstances, but not a politically inspired one when times were improving. Quite apart from those above €100,000 there are other grades, who might get say €90,000 with half the experience. Are these to be reduced as well? If not, are you going to say to these people work hard and we'll promote you when you salary is the same? And as some people leave morale would collapse further as people were required to cover the vacant positions etc.

That said Denis O'Brien might welcome this, as he owns the Beacon Hospital.

If this remains in the SF election manifesto next year, then it would suggest that they wish to avoid government.

Godge wrote: »

http://www.who.int/hrh/resources/oecd-who_policy_brief_en.pdf


You need to read the Report.

(1) "The past decade has witnessed rapid increases in migration of health
personnel, notably in most OECD countries" Doctors (and nurses) move internationally often.

(2) "In particular, countries that have more migration in general, and notably those which have more highly skilled migration, tend to have more migrant health workers." Ireland has variously had high immigration and emigration for decades so we are likely to have high migration rates of doctors.

(3) "From the perspective of potential migrants, the push and pull factors driving the migration of personnel broadly coincide with those that apply to highly skilled workers in general. Despite the lack of doctors and nurses in many developing countries, the first motivation for migration is often linked to more and better employment opportunities abroad (encompassing salaries,
working conditions, career advancement, etc.)." Money is the key motivating factor, absolutely, unconditionally so. And this is a report from the WHO whose interest in the issue would be to downplay the money factor.

(4) " Wage differentials across countries play an important role, but is not the only determinant, as other factors such as the possibility to offer a better and safer future to their children may also be determinant." They do acknowledge it is not just about money, but it is mostly about money. Even then, if you are a doctor capable of earning 200k in most Western countries, then you are not going to stay in a socialist country capping your children's potential earnings at 100k and taxing them at a marginal rate of over 60%.

So all of the evidence in the WHO report supports the notion that capping doctors salaries at 100k will result in the loss over the following years of significant expertise and experience, probably over half of the doctors in the system.

Now, it is a perfectly acceptable policy position for SF to adopt that this is acceptable and that they will replace them with low-quality inexperienced doctors from elsewhere as they are not going to pay the market price. Fair enough, but stop pretending that things will be fine.

It really bugs me this pretence by SF and its supporters on here that radical policy changes will not have radical consequences. Of course they will have radical consequences. If they didn't they would have been done already. In this case, the radical consequence of reducing salaries in the public service to 100k in the next budget (as costed into SF budgetary policies) will result over the following two to three years in a significant turnover of high quality experienced staff. That is the price of the policy, stop pretending otherwise.

EDIT: And it won't just be doctors, watch the high quality academics leave too.

Happyman42 wrote: »

Ha ha...like that is what happened over the last few years, people who took huge cuts just upped and left PS in a mass exodus. You must have figures for that surely?

Permabear wrote: »

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