Why Mary Harney is right about PPP hospitals

[cancer]

Sitting up in the bed across from Matthew (real name) in a 2 bed room in Public Hospital on Monday. Matthew works forthe HSE and we have been hitting it off brilliant for the last hour about what's wrong with the HSE, Health Service, Hosptials etc. Only pain in the arse is that he does agree and he is part of the system that I am having a constructive pop off. Anyways we're both their for the same reason that day - tests for the same condition. His is more recent. Mine more persistent.

Anyways lets talk about Day 2. A long time ago now.

It is about 4pm. Sunday. I get the news I am off a trolley and getting a bed. Good to hear the VHI helps (this is a bull************************ statement by the way for another thread). Anyways herself is with me and about 6:30 and I silently whisper to her that the other 5 patients seem to be and look fairly good. I am in ************************************G BITS (though as it works out I ain't even getting started). Anyways I say to her "none of them looks all that sick". At 1:30 am I ask the guy opposite me in the ward as he sits in front of the TV would he mind turning it off. He agrees and I pop off. I wake next morning early - sorry that should mean woken. Sleep on don't work in hospital. Anyways around 11 - 12, 4 of the other 5 patients are discharged and before 2 o'clock all 4 beds are refilled. All are in for a treatment / tests. All have appointments and times to present themselvesat hospital today.

I'll repeat this because it is important "4 out of 5 patients occupying beds on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday are all discharged first thing Monday morning and replaced by new patients by 2pm Monday afternoon".

In speaking with Matthew he is astonished. His words are "you are one of only 0.0001% of people who have copped what is going on"

So what is going on! I think it is bloody obvious.

The consultants have kept patients in the ward over the weekend. I refer to these patients as the real "bed blockers". Basically because many private consultants don't work weekends (that's what locums and students are for) they can't take the risk of their patients being moved from beds over the weekend.

Lets set the scene. Mary Harney has recently been appointed Minister for Health. She has helped sort the ecomony (Charlie Mac deserves a mention) and now she has set her eyes on the greatest monster of them all - Health. She even has a 10 point plan and there is a great feeling of hope that Mary can do the impossible where luminaries like Mick Martin and Brian Cowen have so obviously and cowardly failed (life long FFer here but lets talk truthfully).

Anyways it is also the time of serious 'trolley stays' and 'trolley delays' in A&E and the weekend I was in I was on a trolley in a room with one other with a cracked window and it was cold. Great thing about morphine is that you are so far out of it and I have been well over the limit for weeks if not months now that you don't know or care what's going on. Pity they can't give the carers by your side some! Anyways on Sunday I go from the trolley to the bed - yippee. In fairness unless someone died that night I was the most seriously ill patient there.

However the point is that while some were in for cuts, bruises, drunkeness, the fool before me in Triage was in for responding badly again to a soft drug, many people were sick and in need of a bed and the better care that you get in a ward. Certainly there were at least 4 people including the guy who shared with me in the cold room with the broken glass in the depths of winter who could have availed of the bed.

However the consultants had their Monday patients all lined up. Sure how often do we hear he is waiting for 6 months to be seen or treated or operated. However the issue here as in all hospitals should not be the commitment of resources such as beds etc. to who is waiting longest but to who is in the most urgent need. In this case the urgent need were the people in A&E. However the people who matter are the consultants patients who need to have the bed on Monday. The best way of guaranteeing a bed for the private patients, hold the beds until Monday with your existing patients. Hence the weekend stay while people who were in pain and seriously ill waited on trolleys in an overcroded A&E. And yes people are drunk and screaming and need to be sedated in A&E on weekends and it is far worse than an episode of ER. Just ask the poor man who was attacked and punched and kicked out of his trolley buy a drunken doped ************************er on another occassion I found myself in A&E.

The consultants mantra to their private patients of "No harm saying in the weekend to be sure everything is alright and if you are ok on Monday we can let you home". So christian, so humanitarian, so self interested.

Back to the recent Monday and I am discussing this with HSE Matthew and he agrees with what I am saying and the subsequent other examples I can provide in my hospital experiences.

The point of all this is as follows. If you want to get patients out of A&E and into the system you have to accept reality. As vicously self serving as it is it does not look like the stomach or the will is there to change it. Just look at the personal villification andongoing criticism of Mary Harney and her reputation over the past 4 years and I think everyone will agree with the statement that 'no one in living memory has put more effort into trying to fix the mess that is our health service'.

Private hospitals on public hospital grounds are necessary because there really isn't any other choice.

*. Consultants have the contracts that say that they can use Public beds and facilities for Private patients. There is no negotiation. No room for compromise or maneuver on this point unless a quid pro quo is offered - see recent consultant wage negotiations as an example. Consultants have an expectation of life and wealth and no one is going to change that.
*. Consultants can't really be made to choose Public or Private. From a patient perspective it would be morally wrong to do so as it would exacerbate the 3-tier system we currently have. - Poor have medical cards; middle class have VHI and those in the middle get royally ************************************ every time they get ill!

A big part of the problem in A&E are the bed blockers caused by Consultants above - the weekend patients! Moving these patients to a Private hospital on the same grounds means that at the very least weekends are better for A&E patients accessing public hospital beds but it will also ensure that there is greater number of beds available to public patients ie. medical cards and the group that get financially screwed for being ill. At let they will get a bed and treatment which is the first necessity.

Forget the ideology the issue is treatment, care and hopefully success. Consultants run our hospitals and not all are bad. The problem is that history and their contracts allow them to run our hospitals they way that they want and they see fit.

If nothing else you say about Mary Harney you would have to say that she did try but eventually lose (or is that losing) a long drawn out battle with our millionaire consultants. A&E delays and bed blocking is widespread. I've been to enough hospitals to know this.

The issue is how can this be fixed or best fixed in the circumstances. Unfortunately we do not have the finances for new private hospitals and whatever else you say people have a choice about public and private and every citizen is entitled to public. If those who can afford want to let them but some of their taxes should also go to allowing them access the public system and which is an argument that consultants make.
If you ever go to a private hospital in this country and there is a complication i.e. something unexpected and serious you will be immediately moved to a public hopsital. That is why Mater Private is so close to Mater Public. If nothing else it saves a long ambulance ride.

Therefore freeing up beds (by building private hospitals) but having the higher level services available next door (located on acute hospital grounds) should complications arise, is also a good thing for patient treatment and lowering mortality rates and perhaps as important ensuring your loved ones are reassured that you are getting the best care possible because it 'swear word' well matters.

<Mod> Please do not use caps for thread titles. </Mod>

[Aindriu]

Perhaps it is high time we told our 'millionaire' consultants to feck off then and employed ones from elsewhere who will work for a realistic salary instead of film start wages?

[Pauli]

Sitting up in the bed across from Matthew (real name) in a 2 bed room in Public Hospital on Monday. Matthew works forthe HSE and we have been hitting it off brilliant for the last hour about what's wrong with the HSE, Health Service, Hosptials etc. Only pain in the arse is that he does agree and he is part of the system that I am having a constructive pop off. Anyways we're both their for the same reason that day - tests for the same condition. His is more recent. Mine more persistent.

Anyways lets talk about Day 2. A long time ago now.

It is about 4pm. Sunday. I get the news I am off a trolley and getting a bed. Good to hear the VHI helps (this is a ******** statement by the way for another thread). Anyways herself is with me and about 6:30 and I silently whisper to her that the other 5 patients seem to be and look fairly good. I am in ********* ********* BITS (though as it works out I ain't even getting started). Anyways I say to her "none of them looks all that sick". At 1:30 am I ask the guy opposite me in the ward as he sits in front of the TV would he mind turning it off. He agrees and I pop off. I wake next morning early - sorry that should mean woken. Sleep on don't work in hospital. Anyways around 11 - 12, 4 of the other 5 patients are discharged and before 2 o'clock all 4 beds are refilled. All are in for a treatment / tests. All have appointments and times to present themselvesat hospital today.

I'll repeat this because it is important "4 out of 5 patients occupying beds on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday are all discharged first thing Monday morning and replaced by new patients by 2pm Monday afternoon".

In speaking with Matthew he is astonished. His words are "you are one of only 0.0001% of people who have copped what is going on"

So what is going on! I think it is bloody obvious.

The consultants have kept patients in the ward over the weekend. I refer to these patients as the real "bed blockers". Basically because many private consultants don't work weekends (that's what locums and students are for) they can't take the risk of their patients being moved from beds over the weekend.

Lets set the scene. Mary Harney has recently been appointed Minister for Health. She has helped sort the ecomony (Charlie Mac deserves a mention) and now she has set her eyes on the greatest monster of them all - Health.


She even has a 10 point plan and there is a great feeling of hope that Mary can do the impossible where luminaries like Mick Martin and Brian Cowen have so obviously and cowardly failed (life long FFer here but lets talk truthfully).

Anyways it is also the time of serious 'trolley stays' and 'trolley delays' in A&E and the weekend I was in I was on a trolley in a room with one other with a cracked window and it was cold. Great thing about morphine is that you are so far out of it and I have been well over the limit for weeks if not months now that you don't know or care what's going on. Pity they can't give the carers by your side some! Anyways on Sunday I go from the trolley to the bed - yippee. In fairness unless someone died that night I was the most seriously ill patient there.

However the point is that while some were in for cuts, bruises, drunkeness, the fool before me in Triage was in for responding badly again to a soft drug, many people were sick and in need of a bed and the better care that you get in a ward. Certainly there were at least 4 people including the guy who shared with me in the cold room with the broken glass in the depths of winter who could have availed of the bed.

However the consultants had their Monday patients all lined up. Sure how often do we hear he is waiting for 6 months to be seen or treated or operated. However the issue here as in all hospitals should not be the commitment of resources such as beds etc. to who is waiting longest but to who is in the most urgent need. In this case the urgent need were the people in A&E. However the people who matter are the consultants patients who need to have the bed on Monday. The best way of guaranteeing a bed for the private patients, hold the beds until Monday with your existing patients. Hence the weekend stay while people who were in pain and seriously ill waited on trolleys in an overcroded A&E. And yes people are drunk and screaming and need to be sedated in A&E on weekends and it is far worse than an episode of ER. Just ask the poor man who was attacked and punched and kicked out of his trolley buy a drunken doped ********* ********* on another occassion I found myself in A&E.

The consultants mantra to their private patients of "No harm saying in the weekend to be sure everything is alright and if you are ok on Monday we can let you home". So christian, so humanitarian, so self interested.

Back to the recent Monday and I am discussing this with HSE Matthew and he agrees with what I am saying and the subsequent other examples I can provide in my hospital experiences.

The point of all this is as follows. If you want to get patients out of A&E and into the system you have to accept reality. As vicously self serving as it is it does not look like the stomach or the will is there to change it. Just look at the personal villification andongoing criticism of Mary Harney and her reputation over the past 4 years and I think everyone will agree with the statement that 'no one in living memory has put more effort into trying to fix the mess that is our health service'.

Private hospitals on public hospital grounds are necessary because there really isn't any other choice.

*. Consultants have the contracts that say that they can use Public beds and facilities for Private patients. There is no negotiation. No room for compromise or maneuver on this point unless a quid pro quo is offered - see recent consultant wage negotiations as an example. Consultants have an expectation of life and wealth and no one is going to change that.
*. Consultants can't really be made to choose Public or Private. From a patient perspective it would be morally wrong to do so as it would exacerbate the 3-tier system we currently have. - Poor have medical cards; middle class have VHI and those in the middle get royally ********* ********* every time they get ill!

A big part of the problem in A&E are the bed blockers caused by Consultants above - the weekend patients! Moving these patients to a Private hospital on the same grounds means that at the very least weekends are better for A&E patients accessing public hospital beds but it will also ensure that there is greater number of beds available to public patients ie. medical cards and the group that get financially screwed for being ill. At let they will get a bed and treatment which is the first necessity.

Forget the ideology the issue is treatment, care and hopefully success. Consultants run our hospitals and not all are bad. The problem is that history and their contracts allow them to run our hospitals they way that they want and they see fit.

If nothing else you say about Mary Harney you would have to say that she did try but eventually lose (or is that losing) a long drawn out battle with our millionaire consultants. A&E delays and bed blocking is widespread. I've been to enough hospitals to know this.

The issue is how can this be fixed or best fixed in the circumstances. Unfortunately we do not have the finances for new private hospitals and whatever else you say people have a choice about public and private and every citizen is entitled to public. If those who can afford want to let them but some of their taxes should also go to allowing them access the public system and which is an argument that consultants make.
If you ever go to a private hospital in this country and there is a complication i.e. something unexpected and serious you will be immediately moved to a public hopsital. That is why Mater Private is so close to Mater Public. If nothing else it saves a long ambulance ride.

Therefore freeing up beds (by building private hospitals) but having the higher level services available next door (located on acute hospital grounds) should complications arise, is also a good thing for patient treatment and lowering mortality rates and perhaps as important ensuring your loved ones are reassured that you are getting the best care possible because it 'swear word' well matters.

<Mod> Please do not use caps for thread titles. </Mod>

Whatever point you were making about consultants blocking beds etc. unfortunately gets totally lost when you identify yourself as a doctrinaire PD. Your credibility is, sadly, shot to hell straight away. PD Health policy is to make the health service as bad as that in the USA. The fact that you are getting away with it despite, according to opinion polls, 99 out of 100 people NOT agreeing with you, is a travesty of democracy.

[hopi watcher]

Sitting up in the bed across from Matthew (real name) in a 2 bed room in Public Hospital on Monday. Matthew works forthe HSE and we have been hitting it off brilliant for the last hour about what's wrong with the HSE, Health Service, Hosptials etc. Only pain in the arse is that he does agree and he is part of the system that I am having a constructive pop off. Anyways we're both their for the same reason that day - tests for the same condition. His is more recent. Mine more persistent.

Anyways lets talk about Day 2. A long time ago now.

It is about 4pm. Sunday. I get the news I am off a trolley and getting a bed. Good to hear the VHI helps (this is a ******** statement by the way for another thread). Anyways herself is with me and about 6:30 and I silently whisper to her that the other 5 patients seem to be and look fairly good. I am in ********* ********* BITS (though as it works out I ain't even getting started). Anyways I say to her "none of them looks all that sick". At 1:30 am I ask the guy opposite me in the ward as he sits in front of the TV would he mind turning it off. He agrees and I pop off. I wake next morning early - sorry that should mean woken. Sleep on don't work in hospital. Anyways around 11 - 12, 4 of the other 5 patients are discharged and before 2 o'clock all 4 beds are refilled. All are in for a treatment / tests. All have appointments and times to present themselvesat hospital today.

I'll repeat this because it is important "4 out of 5 patients occupying beds on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday are all discharged first thing Monday morning and replaced by new patients by 2pm Monday afternoon".

In speaking with Matthew he is astonished. His words are "you are one of only 0.0001% of people who have copped what is going on"

So what is going on! I think it is bloody obvious.

The consultants have kept patients in the ward over the weekend. I refer to these patients as the real "bed blockers". Basically because many private consultants don't work weekends (that's what locums and students are for) they can't take the risk of their patients being moved from beds over the weekend.

Lets set the scene. Mary Harney has recently been appointed Minister for Health. She has helped sort the ecomony (Charlie Mac deserves a mention) and now she has set her eyes on the greatest monster of them all - Health. She even has a 10 point plan and there is a great feeling of hope that Mary can do the impossible where luminaries like Mick Martin and Brian Cowen have so obviously and cowardly failed (life long FFer here but lets talk truthfully).

Anyways it is also the time of serious 'trolley stays' and 'trolley delays' in A&E and the weekend I was in I was on a trolley in a room with one other with a cracked window and it was cold. Great thing about morphine is that you are so far out of it and I have been well over the limit for weeks if not months now that you don't know or care what's going on. Pity they can't give the carers by your side some! Anyways on Sunday I go from the trolley to the bed - yippee. In fairness unless someone died that night I was the most seriously ill patient there.

However the point is that while some were in for cuts, bruises, drunkeness, the fool before me in Triage was in for responding badly again to a soft drug, many people were sick and in need of a bed and the better care that you get in a ward. Certainly there were at least 4 people including the guy who shared with me in the cold room with the broken glass in the depths of winter who could have availed of the bed.

However the consultants had their Monday patients all lined up. Sure how often do we hear he is waiting for 6 months to be seen or treated or operated. However the issue here as in all hospitals should not be the commitment of resources such as beds etc. to who is waiting longest but to who is in the most urgent need. In this case the urgent need were the people in A&E. However the people who matter are the consultants patients who need to have the bed on Monday. The best way of guaranteeing a bed for the private patients, hold the beds until Monday with your existing patients. Hence the weekend stay while people who were in pain and seriously ill waited on trolleys in an overcroded A&E. And yes people are drunk and screaming and need to be sedated in A&E on weekends and it is far worse than an episode of ER. Just ask the poor man who was attacked and punched and kicked out of his trolley buy a drunken doped ********* ********* on another occassion I found myself in A&E.

The consultants mantra to their private patients of "No harm saying in the weekend to be sure everything is alright and if you are ok on Monday we can let you home". So christian, so humanitarian, so self interested.

Back to the recent Monday and I am discussing this with HSE Matthew and he agrees with what I am saying and the subsequent other examples I can provide in my hospital experiences.

The point of all this is as follows. If you want to get patients out of A&E and into the system you have to accept reality. As vicously self serving as it is it does not look like the stomach or the will is there to change it. Just look at the personal villification andongoing criticism of Mary Harney and her reputation over the past 4 years and I think everyone will agree with the statement that 'no one in living memory has put more effort into trying to fix the mess that is our health service'.

Private hospitals on public hospital grounds are necessary because there really isn't any other choice.

*. Consultants have the contracts that say that they can use Public beds and facilities for Private patients. There is no negotiation. No room for compromise or maneuver on this point unless a quid pro quo is offered - see recent consultant wage negotiations as an example. Consultants have an expectation of life and wealth and no one is going to change that.
*. Consultants can't really be made to choose Public or Private. From a patient perspective it would be morally wrong to do so as it would exacerbate the 3-tier system we currently have. - Poor have medical cards; middle class have VHI and those in the middle get royally ********* ********* every time they get ill!

A big part of the problem in A&E are the bed blockers caused by Consultants above - the weekend patients! Moving these patients to a Private hospital on the same grounds means that at the very least weekends are better for A&E patients accessing public hospital beds but it will also ensure that there is greater number of beds available to public patients ie. medical cards and the group that get financially screwed for being ill. At let they will get a bed and treatment which is the first necessity.

Forget the ideology the issue is treatment, care and hopefully success. Consultants run our hospitals and not all are bad. The problem is that history and their contracts allow them to run our hospitals they way that they want and they see fit.

If nothing else you say about Mary Harney you would have to say that she did try but eventually lose (or is that losing) a long drawn out battle with our millionaire consultants. A&E delays and bed blocking is widespread. I've been to enough hospitals to know this.

The issue is how can this be fixed or best fixed in the circumstances. Unfortunately we do not have the finances for new private hospitals and whatever else you say people have a choice about public and private and every citizen is entitled to public. If those who can afford want to let them but some of their taxes should also go to allowing them access the public system and which is an argument that consultants make.
If you ever go to a private hospital in this country and there is a complication i.e. something unexpected and serious you will be immediately moved to a public hopsital. That is why Mater Private is so close to Mater Public. If nothing else it saves a long ambulance ride.

Therefore freeing up beds (by building private hospitals) but having the higher level services available next door (located on acute hospital grounds) should complications arise, is also a good thing for patient treatment and lowering mortality rates and perhaps as important ensuring your loved ones are reassured that you are getting the best care possible because it 'swear word' well matters.

<Mod> Please do not use caps for thread titles. </Mod>

What hospital were you in? Was there any padding on the walls?

Mary Harney is privatising the Health Service in the interests of friends and the chosen few, and the fact is that if she gets her way you won't even get on a trolley or 'weekend bed' unless you have private health insurance and/or money to burn. If you genuinely are interested in fnding out what Harney's plan will deliver, go to the US and have a look around. The consultants there are celebrities FFS and most of our lot love what Harney is doing.They want only to treat people with money/health insurance. Don't be fooled by the odd squell from them now and then, they are just sighs of encouragement.

What is happening with the 80/20 bed usage that is supposed to operate? Is the mighty HSE not enforcing this rule?
All figures indicate that bed occupancy in Ireland is near to 100% while elsewhere the ideal of 85% is the norm.
And once again, the biggest problem that people experience is inequality of access to services. The two tier system that Harney's policies are copperfastening into the system will condemn many people to a shortened life. Again have a look at the US experience, that's what's in store.

[blucey]

What does Mathew do? Is he a porter , a phlebotomist or a painter?
He and you would have more credibility if we knew his credentials and background.

[blucey]

Meanwhile an interesting article in the IT today
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...071624189.html

A comment from it

So far so good, and being a journalist I did a quick check of OECD statistics available on the web, which show that Belgium spent 10.1 per cent of its national wealth or gross domestic product on health services in 2004 compared to 7.1 per cent in Ireland. The country is also considered to have one of the best health services in Europe, which is not surprising given that even modest salaries are taxed at a rate of 50 per cent or more.

[rockyracoon]

I wonder if the costs of doctor visits, privately paid prescriptions and private health insurance are factored into the GDP costs in Ireland? Or are these "off balance sheet" items in our GDP? And do the Belgiums deliver babies on the ditch like we have had done in Monaghan because are services are continually cut?

Fact is that our health service is worse than the US's in some ways. In certain hospitals staff are so demoralised they just aren't bothering to meet minimum requirements anymore. They just don't know from one day to the other whether they have jobs or in what direction the hospitals are going. Until the government comes clean and cuts off all those who can't pay for health service, the system, as presently being modeled, can't run efficiently. It's time the government come clean and tell our citizens that health care is now in the hands of private enterprise. This half way house is only killing people. At least the people who die from lack of health care in the future will not be under any illusions about their situation. They were poor and surplus to the free enterprise system.

[hiker]

The best way of guaranteeing a bed for the private patients, hold the beds until Monday with your existing patients. Hence the weekend stay while people who were in pain and seriously ill waited on trolleys in an overcroded A&E.

This is quite a shock. I'm not saying you are a liar but if this were true there should be a public enquiry.

How many lives were lost under these circumstances?


Best of luck in your recovery. I hope it all turns out for the best.

[blucey]

I wonder if the costs of doctor visits, privately paid prescriptions and private health insurance are factored into the GDP costs in Ireland? Or are these "off balance sheet" items in our GDP? And do the Belgiums deliver babies on the ditch like we have had done in Monaghan because are services are continually cut?

Fact is that our health service is worse than the US's in some ways. In certain hospitals staff are so demoralised they just aren't bothering to meet minimum requirements anymore. They just don't know from one day to the other whether they have jobs or in what direction the hospitals are going. Until the government comes clean and cuts off all those who can't pay for health service, the system, as presently being modeled, can't run efficiently. It's time the government come clean and tell our citizens that health care is now in the hands of private enterprise. This half way house is only killing people. At least the people who die from lack of health care in the future will not be under any illusions about their situation. They were poor and surplus to the free enterprise system.

All those are factored in - its not just public spend that accounts for the 7%, but all expenditure on health related services. Ditto Belgium (all three of it).
You dont go far enough though - people should be preemptivly killed if they are likely to develop costly diseases : not like these fine helathy creatures here (why are they all raising their right arm in unison?)

[blucey]

The best way of guaranteeing a bed for the private patients, hold the beds until Monday with your existing patients. Hence the weekend stay while people who were in pain and seriously ill waited on trolleys in an overcroded A&E.

This is quite a shock. I'm not saying you are a liar but if this were true there should be a public enquiry.

How many lives were lost under these circumstances?

Best of luck in your recovery. I hope it all turns out for the best.

If.....
What he is saying is that there has been a massive, underground conspiracy over the years which would require thousands of administrators, doctors, nurses and paramedics to collaborate to decieve the public, the HSE and the government. Or, it could be a perspective of one person. You decide