100,000 employed in the health service?

Re: 100,000???

Unfortunately it seems that they are only changing the tin on the health service. The same people will be there doing the same This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language they've always done. Call them 'Health boards', or 'Health havens' or 'Health Paradise' - it's still the same old same old.
But we are the #1 country to live in in the world! Yeaaaaahhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaawwwwwwww.

Re: 100,000???

We need lots of staff to run Health Service.
eg.My family tried to get some day care help to look after mother in her late 80`s with dementia.
Assessor called.After a series of questions we were told no help available.We questioned this.
Her manager called and confirmed this.We were told, of two health staff, one was on long term sickness.
Eventually, we were offered a visit a week....20 minute visit!!
.....lots of highly paid staff to trot around telling us that little or nothing is available.
Public service unions are now going to fight tooth and nail to keep this shambles in existence.

Re: 100,000???

Sounds like we're being duped with alot of propaganda from vested interests on the Irish health care system. [broken link removed]

SBP link

Very good link househunter.
As long as the public patient is seen as a drain on fixed resources and the private patient is seen as a source of additional revenue the public patient will be treated as second class.
We either have to completely separate the public and private health systems or public health insurance must be provided by the government for all. In other words the hospitals would get paid for the patients they see, not get all the money up front.
This way the hospitals would compete for patients (and therefore income) and would be looking for sick people rather then deliberately keeping patients in beds who should be in nursing homes so that they can keep costs down (no expensive tests or procedures etc).
The fact is that despite the hype the extra billions have improved things quite a bit. My problem is that we do have a two tier system and that the huge increase in resources should have produces much greater returns.

Re: SBP link

or public health insurance must be provided by the government for all.

Click to expand...

You'll be horrified to hear that this fairly closely matches the Labour Party policy for universal health insurance. So now both Bertie & Purple have gone socialist in one week!

Re: SBP link

What sort of dark hex have you put on me Rainyday?
In fact eh, it also matches the solution proposed by Moore McDowell who would only be described as left wing by someone to the right of Attila the Hun.
So there is cross spectrum agreement on the best solution to the structural problems in the health service, who woulda thunk it?
It may cost some jobs though, or even (gasp!) "changes in work practices" so I can't see the unions going for it. In private sector companies anything that makes the organization more efficient is usually supported by the workforce as it makes their jobs more secure but since the 100,000 have effectively got jobs for life this is not a factor for them.

At the monent the philosophy is that if the health service should cost 5.5 billion to run but only performs at 50% efficiency then sure throw 11 billion at it and it'll be fine!

Ya godda love it!

Re: SBP link

One thing I've seen as being telling, is that when some Irish politicians fall seriously ill they go to the US for their treatment. The Mayo clinic has seen at least a couple of Irish dignitaries.

(From hearsay, when wealthy Irish medical staff get ill, the US is also a popular destination for treatment.)

There's nothing wrong or surprising in people picking the best possible treatment they can afford but it gives us these people's opinion of the health system over which they've had some control of the development.

Apparently the 100,000 (heard on the radio recently that the Dept. of health couldn't provide an exact figure) also include carpenters, electricians etc. for whom it might make more sense to contract in as needed.

Re: SBP link

the sad thing is that most front-line staff join their medical/paramedical professionals out of idealism. I know I hear a lot on this board about people dossing in the public service, but it's no joke having to tell people that services aren't available. Lots of us do unpaid overtime and voluntary work (fund-raising!!) in an effort to provide necessary services. I still remember the first time in the Irish health 'service' having to tell somebody that I couldn't treat them becasue they lived outside the catchement area, my waiting list for my own catchemet area was ridiculously long at over 6 months, and furthermore, not only did their catchement area not provide an equivalent service but the only way they could get the service was privately and it wasn't even covered by VHI and yes it was very expensive.
This is what I thought of when I saw the quote from Bertie when he said that in every profession, you have to bend the ethics. It was against MY ethical principles, but by god do I feel like I'm trying to dam a river with a short plank.
Excuse the rant - whew! I'm in letting off steam!