How to improve the HSE

salonfire wrote: »

Then how are you feeding yourself, clothing yourself, getting about, using a mobile phone, using the internet, etc?

FGS, stop and think for a minute, there clearly are thousands of people not as privileged as you. But to answer your questions, 1. living with parents / friends / family, 2. ready to go €20 per month, no internet, using wifi in shops etc, can`t get around unless walking, getting a lift.

There is another life out there

irishgeo wrote:

It's easy. GP surgery need to upgraded to deal with more tests etc that are currently done in the hospital. GP clinics should be a mini hospital in regards to tests anyway.

What tests? GPs can't perform laboratory testing or radiographic imaging like xrays or CT scans. These services can only be performed at the hospital.

mikep wrote: »

HSE urgently needs 24/7 use of diagnostic equipment, technicians on shift etc..

e.g a second cath lab is not needed in Waterford, just add staff and run the equipment longer

What equipment, technicians do you mean? Employing more staff costs more money. There are staff shortages in many health care fields where there simply isn't enough graduates to fill positions.

One annoying thing I noticed when working for HSE is that everyone wants a paper trail to show that they got permission from above to do every action, so they can't be blamed.

This led to every email being printed off, in colour. So if two people exchanged 20 emails the entire chain of emails would be printed off each time a few email would come, and the previous emails would be shredded.

They had 3 printers and each printer would go through at least 2 cartridges of black ink per week, and the amount of Fcuking paper.

When you consider that this probably happens in every office the expense, needless expense, adds up.

Making it a lot easier to access consultants. Pretty much every consultant works in a hospital and does public and private as it suits them.
Have them to commit to either public care or private care in their own practice and cut the GP as the middle man out.

As an example: I do have ongoing problems that require gynaecological care. If it's urgent the GP has no choice but sending me into A&E because there's f all they can do about it.
Public waiting list to see a gyn is a year long, the urgent one is 6 months. Truth is I need to be seen more than that and it can vary widely. Then it's impossible to get Ultrasound scans either which is pretty much the most essential piece of equipment for gyn issues.
Where I grew up there are many gyn practices around, you call your gyn, they bring you in within 2 days if it's urgent, they can treat a lot there and then.
I'm sick if being in pain, seeing a doctor without them even scanning or checking anything internally, throwing a sh*teload of pills at me that wreck me good and send me home.

Same applies to pretty much every consultant, it could be so much easier if consultants would be easier to access and able to treat more because they have access to equipment.
For what I care they can even bring in a semi-private system where the government pays half of your fee of your private consultant.

It's frustrating to jump through hoops when you know the issue and just need to see the right person doing the right thing but there's literally no other option than shoving your GP 50 quid in the back for a referral (honestly I could call a consultant myself, thank you very much) or go to the A&E. It's so inefficient I don't even have words.

one thing of note in the HSE that has to be tackled is the Deification of clinical consultants.

if I hear one more bucking consultant being asked how to tackle the ED problem or waiting list problem in Ireland I'll go mucking nuts.

Lets be clear, a huge issue with the waiting lists and ED's is a business process and utilization of resources problem.

When we had a huge backlog of people trying to get driving tests did we ask the driving instructors how to fix the issue ? No, we got a bunch of management consultants in and fixed the process and resourcing problem.

But, as with everything in the HSE, there is vested interests at play and a deference to the clinical consultants that mean they have WAY too much power in every aspect of this.

And having worked with many whe you couple it with them having the right amount of God complex to believe they can not only do their job, but do what ever piddly little task you are an "expert" at too, its a 1 way ticket to the mess we are in now.