Cancer Misdiagnosis Who's To Blame?

Auditor #9

Auditor #9 wrote: »

EDIT
If it takes 5 years it will be a job well done by the Opposition I swear to you.

Theres idealism for ya!
What you might see is 2 years quiet. and then FF giving out about the same or different other things going wrong things that the opposition are giving out about now and then 7yrs into a Lab/FG govt,FF will be saying stop blaming us,ye have been in power for seven years ffs

Thats whats going to happen unless you can change the psychic of the population into swapping their hdmi cables for part paying doctors salaries.
Breath holding is not my forté.

Changing government is probably healthy.
Pity we have an opposition that makes a lot of people squirm with either fear or embarassment.

Auditor #9

Deleted User wrote: »

Theres idealism for ya!
What you might see is 2 years quiet. and then FF giving out about the same or different other things going wrong things that the opposition are giving out about now and then 7yrs into a Lab/FG govt,FF will be saying stop blaming us,ye have been in power for seven years ffs

I'd say what you'll see is massive inefficiencies, overpayments and waste within the first 9 months if not less of an audit, figures which the Opposition have every right to burn into the memories of the punters.

EDIT
And we haven't even started talking about MRSA yet

lostexpectation

who was it running the midlands health service before the hse? maybe that person should go, who did the doc write his letters too?

and we still don't know who made the misdiagnosis because they never investigated it.

pfkf1

lostexpectation wrote: »

who was it running hte midlands health service before the hse? maybe that person should go, who did the doc write his letters too?

and we still don't know who made the misdiagnosis because they never investigateed it.

Michael Martin, he read it and he signed a cheque and thought that was the end of the problem, Mary Harney was also made aware of the situation, she referred the letter to the HSE as it wasn't her responsibility, so then Brendan Drum was aware, and all did nothing about, all 3 should go.

lostexpectation

pfkf1 wrote: »

Michael Martin, he read it and he signed a cheque and thought that was the end of the problem, Mary Harney was also made aware of the situation, she referred the letter to the HSE as it wasn't her responsibility, so then Brendan Drum was aware, and all did nothing about, all 3 should go.

I presume he sent the same letters tos aswell, including the midlands health board head, he probably been involved in the health system longer then michael martin

pfkf1

http://www.irishelection.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/naughton02letter.pdf

Please follow the link to view The Missing Letter, that Peter Naughton sent the department of health in 2002, that was sent to Brendan Drum as you can see on the letter, it is clearly marked urgent for attention of Brendan Drum. That means that Mary Harney ordered that this letter be sent over to Drum as Drum wasn't around in 2002 when Martin was minister.

It is clear that all 3 are to blame, all three should tender their resignation at once, for the betterment of the Health Service in this country.

pfkf1

guinnessdrinker wrote: »

I can't see either Martin or Harney beig sacked, I would be absolutley amazed if the gov had the balls to do it.

I do think Harney should resign though. I know that by her resigning the problem isn't going to be solved but she is being paid the big bucks to sit at the top of the ladder and shows no responsibility for it. Her resignation (or sacking) would send a message to the subsequent Minister fof Health to get their act together and sort out the Health system in Ireland. Harney has had four years to do it and has failed so bring someone else in.

While I agree with you, it shouldn't be a matter of balls, it should be a matter of what's right, and sacking Harney and Martin and asking for the head of Drum, would show the next minister as you say that there is accountability, we need to show that there are consequences to people's actions or inactions, these 3 should be made an example of.

And if you read the letter sent by Peter Naughton in 2002, you will see how badly these woman were let down, this issue was raised 6 years ago, and in fact Peter Naughton had concerns a couple of years previous to that. These 3 people are spineless people, who are only interested in keeping their jobs, rather than improving the health service.

And I hope a person like Brenda Power keeps up her campaign against the HSE, these people are paid by us, and yet they don't think they have to answer questions, pathetic.

lostexpectation

listen to eamomn keane yesterday I don't see how journalist putting his 'outraged' voice on helps anyone, same with brenda power.

people complain about no-one in the state sector being sacked why just on the politicians

tallaght01

gordon_gekko wrote: »

private health care is about making money for the likes of sean quinn plus doctors and consultants who like to make another 225k on there private time


there are 2 reasons people become doctors , they come from doctor stock or they are social climbers
oh yeah and the moneys good

Total nonsense.

I have private health. Wouldn't wish the public service on anyone.

My sis, who's at college, works part time in a local hospital. A few days intot he job she came home literally begging my folks to buy private insurance for her in case she ever needs to be hospitalised.

If a sytemic failure is the problem in this case, then they should change the system...everywhere. Then if that system doesn't work, the people who are responsible for changing the system should be sacked. There are lots of countries with highly effective cancer services that we could take the lead from.

if it was an individual error, then the doc needs retraining....and maybe all mammograms shoudl be double-checked. They don't take that long to read. If we had enough radioogists that shouldn't be a problem. Think of all the less important things that get double checked routinely in the state sector.

I think both Harney and Drumm should go...but not neccessarily because of this debacle. They're both a laughing stock.

Centres of excellence FTW.

IRLConor

partholon wrote: »

privates good for non essential stuff but when you get serious it all gets chucked back to the public sector.

I wouldn't call the 6 months of chemo and related treatments I had "non essential" and I sure as hell didn't get "chucked back to the public sector". After hearing the horror stories of people who went through the public system at the same time as me, I was delighted to be fortunate enough to go private.

As for who's to blame for the cancer misdiagnoses? Well, doctors are human, they will screw up. We should account for that in the system by requiring important life-at-stake decisions to be cross-checked by another qualified person. If it is possible for a doctor to cross-check an important decision and they don't, well IMHO that's malpractice. If a doctor can't do the check because there's no-one else available, then it's time to look at how the system has been designed and who designed it (if it's a funding issue, then politicians and high level management, if not then it's probably a lower level management screwup).

knipex

Firstly I am not a politician; I am not a fan of the HSE.
I am far from a fan of the HSE and am not here to defend Mary Harney or any other politician. What happened in Portlaois was a disgrace and should never have happened.

BUT

The rewriting of history here is laughable.

Firstly Mary Harney is not responsible for the formation of the HSE. Michael Martin is. He put in place the legislation and got the ball rolling then moved on leaving Mary Harney with a done deal.
Secondly
Government policy is not to privatise the Health Service. That’s Bulls**t. It’s a nice sound bite but that does not make it true.

Government policy is that 20% of public beds are being used by private patients. These beds are being subsidised and the true cost of private care is not being charges to the insurance companies.

Government policy is to let these private patients go to private hospitals and pay for the true cost of their health care freeing up thousands of beds for public patients.
Private patients and public patients will be treated by the same consultants who will spend 80% of their time dealing with public patients and 20% (now it will be monitored not like before) with private patients.
It is true that Portlaois was designated as a centre of excellence for cancer treatment. It was supposed to have a multidisciplinary team of cancer specialists and be properly resourced.

It never happened. Why ??

Well back in those days the hospitals were run by the health boards that were run by local politicians. Politicians who knew nothing about health but knew how to get elected.

So the plan was announced and cancer services were going to be cantered in 13 hospitals which meant some hospitals were going to lose their cancer services. There was uproar, people went to the streets. If my local hospital looses it cancer services I will have to travel 50 miles to the centre of excellence. There were protests in the streets.

Now the local politicians wanting to get elected didn’t want to upset the voters so they stood up and said no way will your local hospital be “downgraded” and loose its cancer services. They rang their local TD (who also wanted to get elected again) who rang the minister who rolled over and said OK that’s fine let’s leave things the way they are. The local politicians went back to the people and said we stood up to the big bad government and your local hospital wont lose its cancer services and you won’t have to ravel 40 or 50 miles to a centre of excellence where you would have gotten much better care and have a much better chance of survival but will be able to get a second rate level of care right here in your local hospital (I am paraphrasing here).
So the politicians were happy, the people were happy and the protests ended and people went home with a warm glow in their hearts full of pride in what they accomplished.

Roll on a few years and it’s suddenly discovered that second rate cancer treatment means mistakes happen more often that they should. There is uproar, why was portloais made a centre of excellence they say. Why did the government not follow through they say.

Well so who is to blame?

The Minister of the day.
Local politicians.
All the people who protested on the streets to prevent their local hospital losing its cancer services.
The HSE who inherited the mess and were trying to sort it out (to mass protest) even before this entire disaster came to light.
In that order.

So anyone want to argue anything I have said ?

IRLConor

knipex wrote: »

If my local hospital loses it cancer services I will have to travel 50 miles to the centre of excellence. There were protests in the streets.

While I understand this sentiment, it's really not very logical. 50 miles is not far to travel for good quality cancer services. Sod it, you'd walk there if it significantly increased your odds of survival.

Now, in theory we could have excellent cancer services in every hospital in the country but this would require an ultra-efficient health service and/or a significant hike in taxes. The former is a pipe dream and the latter is politically untenable, so it's not going to happen. Once people realise that, then the problem becomes one of positioning the care centres such that it inconveniences the least number of people.

knipex

I completely agree.

My post was about the attitude of people back when this was all proposed initially and Portlaois was to be a center of excellence.

The same mentality stands even now with the new plan for centers of excellence but because local politics have no power in health any more it may actually happen this time.

For all my problems with the HSE this is one area in which they have my 100% support.

Mr.Micro

Now, in theory we could have excellent cancer services in every hospital in the country but this would require an ultra-efficient health service and/or a significant hike in taxes. The former is a pipe dream and the latter is politically untenable, so it's not going to happen. Once people realise that, then the problem becomes one of positioning the care centres such that it inconveniences the least number of people.

It was the interference of greedy local politicians that helped to hijack centres of excellence in the recent past. I agree with the above quote. Local councillors are often ignorant of the complexities of medical care, but still put an oar in as they are reluctant to lose local control or lose a seat on another committee. Keep the local politicians out of the mix.

lostexpectation

but we're getting less centers of excellance then the hanley report suggesed, so atleast one group was right to protest...


anyway after watchinga bit of Q&A we're still no clearer on which docs misdiagnosed people, whether it was one doc or more then one, i don't see how that even if there a doc doing only 50 cases a year that his/her work cannot be checked in system the checks a number of hospitals....

jmayo

Oh the shock, the horror of it:
someone in ministerial position or someone in public sector/civil service losing their job or having to resign becuase of incompetence :rolleyes:

Harney won't go, becuase she is convinced that the two tier system must be put in place and it is her baby.
Afterall the market economy is the solution to everything.
What will happen is those rich enough and lucky enough to be near private hospitals will be able to go private and everything should be fine.
The remaining people will either have to go totally public or else at least experience the worse parts of it, the A&E and it's disaster.

The real benificiaries from the new private hospitals will be the investors and the consultants that can charge huge fees for their work.

The taxpayers will not benefit since they will still be funding the waste of space HSE with all it's administrators and managers.

I have experienced a public hospital's services through a parent.
Sadly catching MRSA did not do much for his chances of surviving.
Now he is just another statistic to harney and the fu**wits that work in and run the dept. of health and the HSE.
Maybe he is not even that since they seem to have glossed over the fact that he caught MRSA while in hospital.

Some of the front line staff are very good hard workers.
Some aren't woth a sh** and couldn't care less.
I presume it is the same in every public hospital.

What harney and drumm have done this week, to those women in the midlands that were misdiagnosed, then publicly tortured while their cases were reviewd in glare of publicity, is display nothing but bare faced cheek to affectively say sorry but shi* happens, you get misdiagnosis.
We will try and make sure it doesn't happen again and if it does we will make sure the shi* doesn't fly as high.
Of course the fact that nobody carries the can just shows what we have become as a nation.
Nobody is responsible for anything and anything that does happen is nobody's fault.

Imagine the poem Yeats could pen today if he were still around.
Coming up to Easter and it's commenorations, will bertie et al even think "is this the Ireland that the 1916 volunteers invisaged" ?
Pearse, Collins, hell even Dev must be spinning in their graves.

Raintonite

Nobody's to blame. We are switching from public to private health care. It's a well known phenomenon that when institutions are in transition that certain problems will fall through the cracks. Stop whingning. You, the electorate, voted for this government and they are only following through with one of their programs.

Heinrich

Raintonite wrote: »

Nobody's to blame. We are switching from public to private health care. It's a well known phenomenon that when institutions are in transition that certain problems will fall through the cracks. Stop whingning. You, the electorate, voted for this government and they are only following through with one of their programs.

As one of the vast minority who did not vote for "them" i feel perfectly entitled to critisize this incompetent waste of space!

People dying of cancer are not "problems that fall through the cracks" they are humans who are suffering needlessly. The whole mess is so bad that it cannot be resolved by getting in eminent specialists from Canada. There must be adequate means for the specialist to perform and 300 million euro cutbacks are not the way to go.

We are talking about essential public services, not businesses and whatever means are needed for maximum efficiency should be available. That, coupled with dismissal for inefficiency might improve matters. Sadly, we have a brigade who defend the incompetent minister and the equally inept head of the HSE to the detriment of the greater public.

knipex

Raintonite wrote: »

Nobody's to blame. We are switching from public to private health care. .

I would love to know how you came to this conclusion.

Did you hear a soundbite from Sinn Fein or another party and deside to take it as fact despite the lack of any evidence ?

Show me 1 single piece of proof to support your accusation. Just 1.

lostexpectation

q&A with harney all came down to the public system is ****, people are voting with their feet and going to the place that will most likely save em.

jmayo

lostexpectation wrote: »

q&A with ahrney all came down to the public system is hit, people are voting with their feet and going to the place that will most likley save em.

Then this leads to one question, why should taxpayers subsidise a public system that they are not using and they are having to pay for private healtcare for their themselves and their families ?
At this stage most of us are just paying taxes to keep public servants in cushy jobs :rolleyes:

Just heard from sick collegue (kidney infection) who was told it would take 6 weeks to get particular test in public hospital, whereas he got it done in private hospital after 1 day wait.
Freaking great system we have :mad:

Ivicia

I don't see the point of sacking either Mary Harney or Brendan Drumm.

It took almost 2 years to get him. No one wants that job and anyone who thinks they do are off their heads. That man will be honouring his current contract and going back to his old job where he will make the €400K a year he makes now and have none of the headaches.

Centres of excellences are the way to go for this type of specialised medicine- the more senior doctors you have in one center the more attractive it is to get 'good' junior doctors to work there.

Private health care is all fine and well but the bottom line is profit and I would only consider it for ingrown toe nail and such.