What should our new minister for health do???

ishmael whale

Just noticed this. Sort of raises the question of what’s the vision now.

Govt to shelve Hanly Report on hospital reform - report
03/02/2005 - 10:16:33

The Government is reportedly set to shelve the recommendations contained in the contentious Hanly Report on hospital reform.

Reports this morning said Health Minister Mary Harney was expected to tell David Hanly, who has been drawing up a plan to implement the reforms, that his services are no longer needed.

Mr Hanly’s report recommended the downgrading of several smaller hospitals, which would have lost functions such as accident and emergency services if the plan had been implemented.

The Hanly Report, which met with intense opposition from politicians and the public, recommended that such services be centralised in regional hospitals.

Moriarty

Fantastic. Were condemned to a **** health service because politicans wont ignore the ignorant masses.

Villain

MRSA is primaryly caused by doctors and nurses not washing their hands!!

MrPudding

Here is something I find interesting. If you are on a waiting list over a certain length of time they ship you up North to get treated privately. I think this is great, sick people should not have to wait for extended periods of time to be treated. Here is the thing. If you are in the North and you have been waiting too long you get sent down here to be treated privately.

Does anyone else find this a bit wasteful? I know 1 person personnally from the North that availed of this service and I met the family of another on the train to Belfast at the weekend. It seems like a bit of a waste of money. The health board in the north pays for a hotel for immediate relative of the person being treated. I presume the same is the case for someone going the other way.

It is obvious that both systems have slack which allow them to care for patients from the other state. Would it not be cheaper to treat them privately in their own state? Does anyone know why this happens?

MrP

Boggle

There is probably no cleancut solution to healthcare issues but a start might be to look at why the costs are so high. I would make it easier to get into medicine, thus increasing the generation of new doctors (i.e. cheaper doctors). The theory being that if they were cheaper, then you could have more - making overtime unnecessary for them.
A useful side effect would be to bring down the GP's fees so people get diagnosed quicker as they might be more used to going to the doctor when somethings up.

I would preferably set up a faster turnaround system whereby for example you come in with an injury(break), you get x-rayed, get the x-ray read and the wound treated in 1 visit instead of having to come back on a couple of occasions as is currently the case. Whereby Hanley appeared to want to develop specialised illness treatment centres I would instead rather have the system set up in such a way that when we so get rid of the backlog that currently exists - we would then be in a position to tout for business from other countries.

I know its too simplistic a solution but as I see it the insurance isn't the problem - its the capacity and ability of our medical sector thats the problem. Also, I reckon there should be no insurance - it should all be covered by the state and payed from our taxes so that all people get the same level of treatment. That is to say the best level of treatment. When you are lying sick on a trolley the last thing you should be worried about is 'how am I going to pay for this?'!!

cdebru

just a quick point
we already have compulsory health insurance
its called PRSI

arcadegame2004

I still stand by my proposals. I also favour abolishing the stupid Health-Boards, which enshrine parish-pump politics in the health-service. The country-jersey mindset of a lot of Irish people also needs to be confronted by politicians. Something like the Forum on Europe needs to be set up whererby politicians travel the country to explain to people in lay-man's terms why it is bad for the country to have every county having every facility in its hospitals. Having all the counties having that in the end leads to them having to be downgraded again due to unsustainable costs. Mary Harney is to be lambasted for planning to throw the Hanley report off the political-cliff (if the story is true).

Bonkey Irish health-insurance costs are a lot lower than in Switzerland. I pay 39 euro a month for my VHI cover. Maybe costs of living in general are higher there and it would take a long time for us to reach those levels of cost. But if this is not so, then maybe the regulation of the health-insurance market in Switzerland is not what it should be to allow premiums to reach that frightening level. Are you sure private-health-insurance is compulsory in Switzerland? I would like more information if you have it on this matter.

A market-based solution is the best because demand breeds suppliers to profit from the demand, while vigorous regulation should be able to prevent profiteering.

billy the squid

arcadegame2004 wrote:

No I don't think I am. The problem in the US system is that regulators are, in my opinion, not doing their job right. They costs of heath-insurance there spring from a culture in which, in spite of the clear gap between Europe and the US in terms of growth, there are certain sectors of US industry where the competition authorities are seemingly unwilling to tackle cartels. There surely most be cartels between certain players in the Health-Insurance market for the premiums in the US to be so staggeringly high

Are you certain of that, has the thought that the US is one of the most litigious of cultures in the world not occoured to you. We have the same "compo culture" here. the health insurance system would end up in exactly the same way as the US if what you proposed were done.

and would be required to choose the cheapest option.

sounds like the system we have now to be honest. except you would have to pay for it your self as opposed to having a medical card. people on lower incomes would have to do two years of tests to find out they have 6 months to live and have lung cancer when they might have been saved with chemtherepy two years earlier. The problem is not with health insurance, the problem is with the amount of beaurocracy and management issues within the health service.

arcadegame2004

I thought thats what the "don't privatise" argument is. Privatisation isn't a fix, its a fundamental change, based on an unproven (that I can see) premise that a public-service healtcare system is inherently worse then a privatised one.

See, you keep comparing a well-run privatised system to a badly-run public one, and concluding that it makes no sense not to change. Why not compare apples with apples? If we can run something well, then compare well-run private vs. well-run public. If we can't run something well, then compare badly-run private vs badly-run public.

The current system is not working. Something new has to be tried. I suspect Galileo would have had similar accusations thrown at him when he dared suggest the world is round e.g. unproven.

cdebru

arcadegame2004 wrote:

The current system is not working. Something new has to be tried. I suspect Galileo would have had similar accusations thrown at him when he dared suggest the world is round e.g. unproven.

I think you are stretching credibility comparing yourself to galileo