Whats gone wrong with our health system?

irish_bob

SleepDoc wrote: »

1. Most workers in the health service are incredibly dedicated and don't deserve to be fired. A hospital cannot function without admin, maintenance, receptionists, catering staff.


2. Its not a closed system. If you work hard enough you can become a doctor. There are high standards because lives literally depend on you. There is very little snobbery. Medicine, more than other careers is a meritocracy.


3. Most consultants work hard and perform their public duties to the same standard as they do to their private. To become a consultant is not easy, particularly in Ireland. In general they are better qualified and better practitioners than in other countries.

that sounds like a union boast it so beggars belief , irish consultants are better qualified and better at thier job than in other countries :eek:

thebman

irish_bob wrote: »

that sounds like a union boast it so beggars belief , irish consultants are better qualified and better at thier job than in other countries :eek:

Yeah thats why people only die almost half the time :P

SleepDoc

irish_bob wrote: »

that sounds like a union boast it so beggars belief , irish consultants are better qualified and better at thier job than in other countries :eek:

It's not a union boast. I'm not a consultant. I am a doctor though, so trust me, consultants are in general of a higher standard than in other countries.

astrofool

SleepDoc wrote: »

1. Most workers in the health service are incredibly dedicated and don't deserve to be fired. A hospital cannot function without admin, maintenance, receptionists, catering staff.

It can't, but it probably could operate with half the current amount without any loss of service.

SleepDoc wrote: »

2. Its not a closed system. If you work hard enough you can become a doctor. There are high standards because lives literally depend on you. There is very little snobbery. Medicine, more than other careers is a meritocracy.

This is fine, but also applies to any other professional jobs.

SleepDoc wrote: »

3. Most consultants work hard and perform their public duties to the same standard as they do to their private. To become a consultant is not easy, particularly in Ireland. In general they are better qualified and better practitioners than in other countries.

I'm calling bullsh*t here. Is there any study that show our consultants are better than in other western countries?

silverharp

SleepDoc wrote: »

1. Most workers in the health service are incredibly dedicated and don't deserve to be fired. A hospital cannot function without admin, maintenance, receptionists, catering staff.


2. Its not a closed system. If you work hard enough you can become a doctor. There are high standards because lives literally depend on you. There is very little snobbery. Medicine, more than other careers is a meritocracy.

Back it up, entry is restricted into the medical system which I guess suits all concerned excect for the patients, and its pretty much an axiom that if the gov. is running it , it will cost more and provide less services. Working hard at the individual means nothing if the system is a chaotic mess.

FlutterinBantam

silverharp wrote: »

Back it up, entry is restricted into the medical system which I guess suits all concerned excect for the patients, and its pretty much an axiom that if the gov. is running it , it will cost more and provide less services. Working hard at the individual means nothing if the system is a chaotic mess.

Beg to differ very slightly.

If those providing the service are run off their feet and working very hard you can be guaranteed that the system is in a chaotic mess;)

Narkius Maximus

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

Beg to differ very slightly.

If those providing the service are run off their feet and working very hard you can be guaranteed that the system is in a chaotic mess;)

Agreed! Where it matters, i.e Front line-Docs, Nurses, Physios, EMTs etc work their cotton socks off to keep the healthcare service afloat. However, it's administration and management who constantly restrict and prevent them from doing their jobs. (my own anecdotes). Management should facilitate staff to do their jobs not harangue and obstruct. Try get an emergency admission from out patients-end up having to speak to vice CEO. That's not how it should work! It is chaotic, it needs to change!

FlutterinBantam

Wouldn't agree with you totally there....

The whole system, the lot ,frontline backroom, management, the way things are done needs to be run better.

The vested interests need to be challenged and the whole organisation streamlined.

Just because a certain section is working very hard doesn't mean they are working efficiently and cost effectively.

There's where the real problem is.

Sizzler

Paying lads €225k to do nothing doesnt help :rolleyes:

http://www.independent.ie/health/latest-news/surgeon-claims-he-is-being-paid-to-do-nothing-1935860.html

wrote:

A team of three orthopaedic consultants, with combined salaries of about €675,000, has virtually no work to do at a busy hospital.


Senior consultant surgeon Peter O'Rourke has revealed he and two colleagues were being paid to sit around doing nothing while operating theatres were lying empty at Letterkenny General Hospital, Co Donegal.

"The Government is paying me a large sum of money to sit around doing nothing," said the bored surgeon, who earns around €225,000 a year, almost eight times the average industrial wage.

Despite lists of people in pain waiting for hip and knee replacements, the hospital has put off all so-called "elective" procedures until at least next year in a drive to save money. It has budget overruns of €2.7m.

Dr O'Rourke, who candidly pointed out that the patient was the real victim, said he was "frustrated and depressed" about the situation.

"I'm sitting here in my office looking out my window at a digger piling up clay on the site of the new emergency department when I should be at work in an operating theatre."

Dr O'Rourke said he could still perform day surgery every three weeks but was told there would be no elective surgery until the new year.

"There is no satisfaction working in the health service at present. I could go and work in a private hospital but that would necessitate me leaving Donegal, which is my home," he said.

He revealed that, since the beginning of the month, he and his colleagues had been cut back to performing surgery one day out of every two weeks, but restrictions were leaving them with neither beds nor staff.

"I have no wish to work as an agent for the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF). If I see new patients, they are put on to a list and once they are there three months, they move on to the NTPF list. That's not what I trained for," he said.


Frustration

He added that if the hospital was given adequate resources, it could treat its patients.

"The most frustrating thing of all is that people blame consultants because they believe we have some influence. We don't, but as the highest paid members of the health service, it's easy to always make us the whipping boys," he said.

So far this year, Dr O'Rourke and his colleagues have been limited to carrying out 125 hip replacements and 45 knee replacements although the demand is considerably greater.

Mary Tierney, a spokeswoman for the patient advocacy group Patient Focus, said any deferral of hip replacement surgery resulted in increased pain for the patient and additional costs to the health service.

"It is being penny-wise and pound-foolish," she said. "There is the added pain factor as well as the need for external help, time off work, additional medicines and the increased risk of the patient falling, which just puts further pressure on the system."

A HSE spokesperson said it had a legal obligation to remain within budget by the end of the year.

"It is the case that we are looking at different ways of doing that, and we are discussing these with our staff at the moment.

"We will be ceasing to do hip and knee replacements from our waiting list for a number of weeks.

"We are also attempting to increase the number of patients we can treat through our day surgery unit," she said.

She added that the possibility of further bed closures and a review of temporary staff contracts at the hospital could not be ruled out.

"As always, we will do our very best to minimise the impact on our patients," she added.

FlutterinBantam

The big question there is of course why the overrun of almost 3million???

Spiritoftheseventies

So in the meantime we still cant find a post op bed for someone who desperately needs it. It seems to be everyone else's problems but nothing is being done to solve the situation. That mother mentioned in original post must be at the end of her tether.

FlutterinBantam

That's the HSE for you, it's everybody else's problem

jmayo

SleepDoc wrote: »

1. Most workers in the health service are incredibly dedicated and don't deserve to be fired. A hospital cannot function without admin, maintenance, receptionists, catering staff.

Yeah right :rolleyes:

SleepDoc wrote: »

2. Its not a closed system. If you work hard enough you can become a doctor. There are high standards because lives literally depend on you. There is very little snobbery. Medicine, more than other careers is a meritocracy.

Oh for God's sake. To progress as a consultant you really need good contacts and maybe that's why so many of them are related.
Snobbery, most consultants are up their own ar**, although have to say the younger ones have drastically imrpoved ?
oh give it a rest.

SleepDoc wrote: »

3. Most consultants work hard and perform their public duties to the same standard as they do to their private. To become a consultant is not easy, particularly in Ireland. In general they are better qualified and better practitioners than in other countries.

Except on Friday afternoons and at weekends.
Yes we know it is not easy to become a consultant, ala the need to have contacts in the business for a start.
Better than other countries, would that be Zimbabwe or Afghanistan ?

SleepDoc wrote: »

It's not a union boast. I'm not a consultant. I am a doctor though, so trust me, consultants are in general of a higher standard than in other countries.

Can we see the proof to that last statement ?


As regards what's wrong with HSE.

Lobby groups is what is wrong.
Staff Unions, consultants representative bodies, politicans and local lobby groups.

Darsad

Biggins wrote: »

1. Harney - that is WHEN she actually at her job and desk - and not disappearing again!
.

Im hearing some disturbing rumours about Harney and her absenteeism anybody else heard them !

MysticalRain

SleepDoc wrote: »

3. Most consultants work hard and perform their public duties to the same standard as they do to their private. To become a consultant is not easy, particularly in Ireland. In general they are better qualified and better practitioners than in other countries.

You know it's just my anecdotal experience from dealing with doctors in two countries - Ireland and New Zealand. But my own experience of dealing with Irish doctors has been the complete opposite. It was so bad that I had to make a formal complaint to one of the private hospitals that I had the misfortune of attending.

"Working hard" doesn't give someone an automatic right to be paid well. Plenty of people work much harder than hospital consultants and are paid far less. Its market scarcity that dictates how well somebody is paid and that has nothing to do with how hard they work.

Treora

MysticalRain wrote: »

"Working hard" doesn't give someone an automatic right to be paid well. Plenty of people work much harder than hospital consultants and are paid far less. Its market scarcity that dictates how well somebody is paid and that has nothing to do with how hard they work.

+1

.nurses on habitual overtime and not scheduled to work 8 hour shifts
.screwing the junior doctors who work 65+ hour weeks. The the few that survive resent the system so much that they want their pound of flesh. They could put more doctors working 45 hours a week into the system and employ specialists not as god like consultants on fee based contracts but purely as skilled biotechnician employees like in Germany
.too much cross purpose management. Managing doctors are institutionalised and do not realise that treatment management can process beyond triage
.the vocal patients get all the attention over cases that need greater treatment sooner.
.too little transparency and comparison. Hospitals are black box systems for the public, if people understood more then hospitals could be instruct people how better to help them.
.too many aftercare cases being kept in hospitals rather than in community care clinics (closer to their family and able to deal with medium term care)
.too little use of new technology e.g. an CT/x-ray taken in Donegal at 3am in a emergency situation could be viewed by a specialist in Vancouver and audited by one in Dublin. Using people in different counties never mind countries is madness to institutionalised aristocracy.

great example: use a GUM clinic in the UK, you walk in, fill out a form, give a sample, have a short interview can call back 48 hours later. In Ireland everyone is booked a week in advance, herded in at 10a.m.and forced to wait for an hour. Fill out a form and wait for an hour, interviews happen over a 2 hour period, then a test and phone back 10 days later. UK 15 minutes, Ireland 4 hours. Insane inflexibility and control issues.

You have to like the French system where by everyone carries their medical records on a chip and pin system (though encryption than your ATM card), go anywhere have your medical procedure and your details update then and there and move on.

irish_bob

MysticalRain wrote: »

You know it's just my anecdotal experience from dealing with doctors in two countries - Ireland and New Zealand. But my own experience of dealing with Irish doctors has been the complete opposite. It was so bad that I had to make a formal complaint to one of the private hospitals that I had the misfortune of attending.

"Working hard" doesn't give someone an automatic right to be paid well. Plenty of people work much harder than hospital consultants and are paid far less. Its market scarcity that dictates how well somebody is paid and that has nothing to do with how hard they work.

in the private sector , yes , in the public sector , how well you are paid is dictated by how sweet a deal your union can extract out of the goverment of the day