Centers of Excellence

brianthebard

What do people make of the plans for these centers? Are they good enough? I'm sure people will know that there's been protests about this in Sligo recently. At first I thought this would be happening all over the country, and would settle down after people got used to the centres. But then one of the local papers pointed out that there will be no centre of excellence above the Galway-Dublin line, which I think is a pretty shoddy state of affairs. It doesn't just affect Sligo people, but those in Leitrim, Mayo (the north of it especially), Donegal, and at least half of Roscommon. Infrastructure is imo so bad in these regions that it would take twice as long for anyone in those areas to travel from home to Galway than it would for me to travel from Sligo to Dublin. (not that that means we shall be using a Dublin centre). So do people think these centres of excellence have been sufficently planned out?




(please note, I am not directly involved in the protests or the planned protest happening in Dublin on Wednesday, although I was thinking about going).

biko

What are these centres about? Links or explanation pls.

silverharp

Not that it directly applies but how does it work in countries like Canada given that the guy running the new service worked there? I assume they have an air ambulance type service for longer differences but I'd be surprised if that covered everybody outside the cities. One would think that there would still be a role for satellite units do deal with the more routine visits.

lostexpectation

these so called centre of excellance is great spin, its centraliation thast its, harney keeps quoting that there merely following what the cancer report said, but that report said 12 centres not 8, that a huge difference but sure now they've got everyone using the phrase

InFront

The theory behind the centres of excellence is great, it's undoubtedly true that sites where one can have access to a comprehensive suite of medical facilities including diagnostics, radiotherapy, surgery, therapeutics, physiotherapy etc. must be limited. You simply cannot have one in every county town or in every General Hospital in the country.

However, if one is to take away services like non-elective surgery and oncology, even A&E, from local hospitals and centralising them, you'd want to make pretty certain that you have excellent ambulances and road networks in place to facilitate access, and that your patient has access to a bed once they're in. If that doesn't happen, what's the point? It simply leads to a neglect of the sick in the outlying regions.

Centres of Excellence are a good idea, but only with proper planning, and there's no sign of that.

lostexpectation

the report said about 12 not 8, centralisation another word for cutbacks

sovtek

Centre's of Excellence AKA "lets close out more services and put more money in our pockets".

mike65

They are required. Regarding the NW, with all the "hands across the border" stuff going on, Id have though the Dept of Health and its Norn Iron counterpart could have developed a facility in Derry.

Mike.

fly_agaric

mike65 wrote: »

They are required. Regarding the NW, with all the "hands across the border" stuff going on, Id have though the Dept of Health and its Norn Iron counterpart could have developed a facility in Derry.

Mike.

Some wild speculation...perhaps little possibility for such a facility to make dough for any private partner? After all, that is the key purpose of a countries health system.:D

brianthebard

Ì think that anything less than a cancer service for every two or three counties just isn't enough considering the infrastructure available. We need the health service to move away from cost cutting and start thinking about the patients whose lives are being put at risk because of the substandard way they are being treated.

Vorsprung

brianthebard wrote: »

Ì think that anything less than a cancer service for every two or three counties just isn't enough considering the infrastructure available. We need the health service to move away from cost cutting and start thinking about the patients whose lives are being put at risk because of the substandard way they are being treated.

Having services spread over so many centres is exactly what would cause substandard care. This is classic parish pump politics putting lives at risk.

Specialists need to have a minimum amount of patients per year to maintain their skills, hence the need for a degree of centralisation.I agree that the NW should have a centre, and National Strategy says that Sligo could probably support one.

brianthebard

bigjimthefirst wrote: »

Having services spread over so many centres is exactly what would cause substandard care. This is classic parish pump politics putting lives at risk.

Considering the report said 12 would be the best number and there are 26 counties to be covered, I don't think its beyond the hse to provide a centre for every two or three counties.

Vorsprung

Considering half the population live with x (insert double figured number here) amount of miles of Dublin, I think you're stretching it a bit.