FF/FG/Green Government - Part 3 - Threadbanned User List in OP

You can look up the statistics yourself

Ireland in 2018 had 12.9 nurse per 1000 inhabitants, fourth best according to the OECD.

Countries like Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Canada, UK, all had less than 11.

Ireland, 8th highest in the world, with all EU countries below us. And us with the youngest and healthiest population in the EU.

We have more than enough nurses, it is poor working practices protected by unions, combined with poor local frontline management practices (mostly promoted nurses) that cause the problems.

As I said, this is really for a separate thread.

When you are explaining, you are losing. The figures speak for themselves, we have more than enough nurses. It is the way we use them through bad frontline management and poor union-protected working practices that cause the problem.

The picture painted by that report of nurses running around not knowing what to do, cutting corners, creating workarounds is what makes the problem worse.

So the OECD and myself are wrong, but somehow you are correct.

No Blanch, the data is the data. You are wrong though. Don't get cheeky.

Lies, damned lies and statistics are usually used when you have a weak argument. And it's more than weak.

The whole world is telling you that the Irish health service is understaffed with major capacity issues but you insist our superior nurse-bed ratio makes everything ok. Crazy talk. The lack of capacity and trained nurses is also the reason why we were in lockdown longer than most European countries.

You are not comparing like with like and you know this. I will repost the reason which you ignored.

Speaking on “Safer nurse staffing: the right person in the right place at the right time, he said that if you just looked at OECD figures, Ireland, with 12.4 nurses per 1,000 population, had more nurses than most OECD states. However, this was not the full picture, as the Irish figures included nurses working in management and education and that made it difficult to get accurate figures of those working directly in clinical practice. In other countries, part of the registration process involved stating place of work – this did not happen in Ireland.

IRELAND HAD ONE OF THE LOWEST NUMBER OF BEDS PER THOUSAND POPULATION AND ONE OF THE HIGHEST BED OCCUPANCY RATES IN THE OECD.

How you like them apples?

Where are you on local government reform these days? 🤣

These people are all wrong too. 10th March Oireachtas Health Committee

Irish Examiner View: Health service crisis really is a matter of life and death

Our political leaders have to take responsibility for the decline in our health service.

Unless specific and concrete measures are taken to deal with ongoing problems with the HSE we will be facing years, if not decades, of a declining and demoralised health service.

As the Oireachtas health committee heard yesterday, the ongoing crises being faced almost every day in our hospitals are the direct results of failures by successive governments to properly resource the health service.

The committee heard from representatives of those working in healthcare that we are returning to pre-pandemic overcrowding levels.

The Irish Medical Organisation has described hospital overcrowding as a grave danger to patients. IMO assistant director of policy and international affairs Vanessa Hetherington told the committee that persistent overcrowding in hospitals, like record hospital waiting lists, are the direct results of an equally persistent failure to invest in bed capacity, infrastructure, and medical workforce to meet the needs of a growing and ageing population.

The problem, however, is not just a shortage of beds. There is no point in adding beds unless it is accompanied by hiring more medical and other staff to handle them.

Our political leaders have to take responsibility for the decline in our health service and the fact that it is consistently in crisis mode.

The Government’s decision on Tuesday to allow non-EEA doctors who have been working here for two years to access permits and spousal rights without preconditions is a welcome start to addressing the shortage of doctors, but we also need to make working here more attractive for nurses.

We don’t have enough nurses or hospital doctors and there are certain specialist areas within the health service that are suffering these shortages most acutely. 

In a report last week, the Neurological Alliance of Ireland (NAI), revealed that there is a serious shortage of neurology nurses in Dublin. Dublin hospitals only have 28 nurses working in the neurology sector — a shortfall of 57 nurse specialists caring for people in Dublin and surrounding counties.

So do all patients. More than 21,000 patients have been on hospital trolleys waiting for a bed so far this year and the situation is getting worse, not better.

That makes it, literally, a matter of life and death.

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Wait, has anyone told them that our nurse to bed ratio is superior and these problems cannot be happening?

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Fair point

Taoiseach Micheál Martin was health minister from 2000 to 2004, while Tánaiste Leo Varadkar served in the same capacity from 2014 to 2016. They should be more aware than most politicians of the problems within the service.

You are laughable.

Please see this post.

FF/FG/Green Government - Part 3 - Threadbanned User List in OP - Page 274 — boards.ie - Now Ye're Talkin'

It mentions the government several times and was pre todays FOI report.

Where are they wrong calling for more doctors and nurses?

More evidence that we are one of the best countries to live in. Corruption index score going up as we continue progress.

Since 2012 there was been an improvement of 5 in the score for Ireland as corruption becomes less under FG and Green governments.

The sting of a dying wasp...so now you are blaming frontline healthcare workers for the lack of bed capacity and staff? Lovely.

The frontline health workers are calling out major problems in our health service for decades because they want to make their jobs easier. Lovely.

How can you actually write this garbage? Try and hold yourself to account. Trying to blame everyone else continually.

The problem is actually getting worse. Would you like the 'moaning' nurses and doctors to shut up too?

The Irish Medical Organisation has described hospital overcrowding as a grave danger to patients. IMO assistant director of policy and international affairs Vanessa Hetherington told the committee that persistent overcrowding in hospitals, like record hospital waiting lists, are the direct results of an equally persistent failure to invest in bed capacity, infrastructure, and medical workforce to meet the needs of a growing and ageing population.

The problem, however, is not just a shortage of beds. There is no point in adding beds unless it is accompanied by hiring more medical and other staff to handle them.

Our political leaders have to take responsibility for the decline in our health service and the fact that it is consistently in crisis mode.

Nonsense.

"On health spending, the department annual publication,Health In Ireland(2019 edition), shows the country has the third-highest share of GDP/GNI

spent on health in the OECD, at 12.0pc exceeded only by 12.2pc in Switzerland and 16.9pc in the USA.Health In Irelandalso shows medical and dental staff in the public health service increased by 32.6pc between 2010 and 2019 and that total public expenditure on health here increased by 28.8pc between 2010 and 2019. Given that Ireland has a far lower proportion of its population over 65 than the other OECD countries, we have to ask why we have such a high healthcare cost."

The politicians have given plenty of funding to the healthcare system. However, it is the waste, the poor practices of staff, the particularly poor supervisory management etc. that are causing the problems. The INMO whinging for more staff to make their members' lives easier isn't news or newsworthy.

A quick google shows me that Head Topics are an aggregator mainly used for getting around paywalls.

Original article is by Sean Barrett - economist and former senator, and was originally in the Indo.

Oh it was an opinion piece from a medical economist is it? OECD is right and all nurses and doctors are wrong?? Is that what you are telling me?

And again - actually respond to the content this time. It's from a doctor! And it rubbishes your argument.

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Prof. Jonathan Drennan, Professor of Nursing and Health Services Research, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University College, Cork

OECD nurse patient ratios do not give the full picture | Health Manager

Speaking on “Safer nurse staffing: the right person in the right place at the right time, he said that if you just looked at OECD figures, Ireland, with 12.4 nurses per 1,000 population, had more nurses than most OECD states. However, this was not the full picture, as the Irish figures included nurses working in management and education and that made it difficult to get accurate figures of those working directly in clinical practice. In other countries, part of the registration process involved stating place of work – this did not happen in Ireland.

It had also to be remembered that the environment in which Irish nurses worked was very complex, because Ireland had one of the lowest number of beds per thousand population and one of the highest bed occupancy rates in the OECD. The number of beds in hospitals, patient acuity and dependency, support from other health professionals and patient turnover determined the kind of work which nurses carried out. A small number of beds, increasing patient acuity and dependency and high turnover meant nurses would be much busier.

IRELAND HAD ONE OF THE LOWEST NUMBER OF BEDS PER THOUSAND POPULATION AND ONE OF THE HIGHEST BED OCCUPANCY RATES IN THE OECD.

According to the OECD (2015) Ireland had 2.6 beds per thousand of the population, compared to 13.17 in Japan, 6.13 in France, 4.82 in Luxemburg and 4.35 in Finland.

The bed occupancy rate in Ireland was also very high. According to the OECD, we had a 94% bed occupancy rate, while the rate in Europe ranged from 68% in Slovenia to 84% in the United Kingdom, and 46% in the Netherlands.

“So nurses in Ireland are working clinical settings with high rates of patient turnover, which leads to increased nursing work. Therefore to accurately predict nursing numbers we need to have reliable data that includes patient dependency and acuity, patient turnover, bed occupancy, elective vs. acute admissions and educational level and skill-mix of the nursing workforce.”

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Respond to the content above please, it even mentions the OECD several times 😉....no more waffle about how you know better than the medical professionals.

And neither are those on the defensive and trying to absolve responsibilities.