What have you got against it being run like a business?
The objective of a business is to make money. The objective of a public health service is to ensure the good health of the people of Ireland. Where you have some completely different objectives, the processes are not transferable.
The health service is not a public service for the vast numbers of people who hold private health insurance in this Country.
It's not that simple. The public health service subsidises private healthcare. The charges for private beds in public hospitals are nowhere near the full economic cost of those beds. The private patient in those beds use all the public services in those hospitals (labs, radiology, physio, OT etc). Don't draw any conclusions about the cost/value/profitability of private health care until it stands on its own two feet, i.e. no subsidised beds, no subsidised services, no tax relief etc.
Not all the fault lies with the HSE. Look at the opposition they face when they try to implement projects like the cancer programme and the merger of the the Childrens hospital.
Rightly so in relation to the Childrens hospital. To move this facility into Bertie's back yard with no parking and no transport links is a crazy decision.
The solution to this is that every insurance company is required to offer a minimum level of cover with all policies.
That solution doesn't help those who can't afford insurance.
Then how come the majority of public health services in Ireland are delivered by the private sector e.g. major hospitals owned and run by private religious organisations/trusts?
History. I don't like it any more than you do, but we are where we are.
In Ireland, public health care is very expensive, yet very inefficient.
Private health care is very expensive and very efficient.
Source please - where on earth did you get this from?
Pretty much my point though. Gardai, Defence, even the Fire Service, what's their efficiency and why aren't there calls for these to be privatised? In all cases there is the exact same argument to call for them to be run by the private sector.
Alright, there's a fair amount of hyperbole behind those statements, because getting health care isn't like buying a tv. Mainly in that when you need it most you don't have the luxury of shopping around for your health. You can't post on here with a thread, "Hi I need cancer treatment, just wondering what people's views are on MegaCorp Health care in Cork or GlobalGiants in Sligo".
So who's going to build and run a hospital to care for the huge rural community when first, there's less money there than in the biger cities and towns and less useage.
Then who runs the ambulance service or paramedics? Do you have to have different phone lines for different providers? Is it going to be like the taxi listings in the Golden Pages?
The American system works only for those who can afford it (and even then it's a fight with the insurance companies). I'm not prepared to sell out the health of the other 4 million people here on the basis that first, I'm ok and can afford it and second that the current system needs an overhaul, but not abandoning.
Two points here - The US privatised model for fire-fighters means that when California burns in the summer, privatised fire-fighters will consult insurance records when deciding which houses are to be rescued. Is this really where we want to go?
Also, it doesn't need privatisation to bring about consumer choice in healthcare. See I'm not sure this is a great idea, but regardless, it doesn't require privatisation.
We have the NTPF who contracts from public and private hospitals services that have not been delivered under our public hospital system.
Indeed, so we are incentivising consultants to keep their public waiting lists high, so they get paid on the double for treating the same patients, once through their standard public sector contract, and then again from the NTPF.
While I do agree that the money should follow the patient - and that hospitals should be financed on performance - to be a devils advocate how exactly would we measure performance and success?
This is a huge issue - very important point.
There was only one whistleblower in relation to Neary - she was a foreign trained nurse.
She was an Irish lady - right? She was on TV3's breakfast show during the week.
It is quite obscene to see people trying to rewrite history by blaming nurses for Neary's actions. This is the guy who was reviewed by three eminent male Irish consultants who signed off on his assaults. We know who bears the real responsibility for Neary's actions, and it is not the nurses.