Sinn Fein today held a protest at WRH to protest at the Govt's decision to allow a private hospital be built on the grounds of Waterford Regional Hospital. Jane Bailey who has headed up the campaign for Raiotherapy unit in Waterford was very critical of SF and David Cullinane on local Radio today. She feels this will make up the deficit that is cuurently in place in the south east.
BAD MOVE FOR SF AND CULLINANE TO HAVE THE CANCER CARE ALLIANCE ON YOUR CASE!!!
deep throat i thought you were a fine gaeler? are fg not opposed to the idea of private hospitals on public grounds as well ?
Yes rover FG are. They opposed Harney's land giveaway plan in the Dáil and in the Seanad.Originally Posted by rover
But you are hardly surprised that again deepthroat starts another anti-sf thread.
Yup .. if SF found the bloody cure for cancer Deep Throat would have a problem with it.
Very sad to see ones hatred for another party blight themselves to their own idiocy. Still you've a couple of fellow party members in the same boat here
(Does not include KK, CJman, or HBAP)
1,197 people agree with me.. how many agree with you ?
Does she now? She believes, without even the tendering having started, that the private hospital in Waterford will have a radiotherapy unit? And she believes this will be run in the interest of all patients or just private patients? The reality is that a radiotherapy unit for Waterford could be delivered in the public sector and with greater access to the people of Waterford cheaper and more quickly than this lunatic scheme.
The problem with single issue campaigners is they are completely blinkered and don't see the bigger picture. She's entitled to her opinion. I defend absolutely the right of people to be utterly and completely wrong.
See:
Harney plan to build private hospitals 'a non-starter'
Dr Muiris Houston, Medical Correspondent, in Killarney
Governments plans to build private hospitals on the grounds of public hospitals in the Republic were strongly criticised by several keynote speakers at the annual meeting of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) yesterday.
James Sheehan, consultant orthopaedic surgeon and founder of the Blackrock and Galway clinics, described the plans announced last July by the Tánaiste and Minister for Health, Mary Harney, as a "total non- starter". Jim Power, chief economist with Friends First, told doctors there was a risk the Tánaiste's plans could create a "market failure" in the health system. And Dr Fergus O'Ferrall, director of the Adelaide Hospital Society, said the plans, which are aimed at freeing up 1,000 public beds, did not represent an "evidence-based" approach to health policy.
Speaking during a session titled "Public and private investment in healthcare: what will deliver for the patient?", Dr O'Ferrall said the evidence available from the most reputable international and national sources "does not support the proposal for private hospitals from the point of view of either the most effective use of our financial resources or securing the best health outcomes for our people.
"It appears to be based on a practical Irish solution to an Irish problem . . . I say 'appears' because we have had no coherent published rationale - no white paper and no debate in the Oireachtas - and no consultation with citizens, much less with the public hospitals concerned."
Quoting Canadian health services research, Dr O'Ferrall said private hospital costs were significantly higher than those in the public sector.
The research also suggested poorer outcomes for patients treated in the private sector, including higher death rates. Calling on the Government and the Health Service Executive (HSE) to publish the research behind the "for-profit" healthcare initiative, Dr O'Ferrall said: "The evidence that is available to us supports public 'not-for-profit' healthcare in regard to both cost and outcomes."
Accusing the Government of neglecting healthcare infrastructure in comparison to that of housing and transport, Mr Sheehan described a concept of "State lag" in healthcare, whereby a 20-year gap existed between identifying a health service need and meeting that need.
Based on his experience with the Galway Clinic, where the hospital made half its beds available to the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF), only 7 per cent of which were taken up, Mr Sheehan said: "If the concept of a community hospital had worked well in Galway and been taken up elsewhere, we could have the finest health service in the world in three years."
Speaking from the floor, Dr Tony Healy, consultant anaesthetist at the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital in Dublin, said a number of NTPF patients with ear problems had attended the hospital's A&E department with post-operative problems following initial treatment in the UK.
Some patients returned with complete deafness having flown back within 48 hours of major ear surgery.
Mr Power told doctors that while there was a role for the private sector to complement the public health system, it was better to invest money directly in the health service than to give tax breaks to develop the system.
"A lot of ideas put forward by the Minister for Health in the last 12 months could create added problems for the health sector," he said. "There is a danger that complex cases will not be catered for in private hospitals and that talented healthcare professionals will drift to the private system and away from public health service,"
The Government's co-location hospital scheme contradicts its own health strategy and is more likely to harm the public system, writes Dr John Barton (Consultant, and FGer, in Portiuncla Hospital)
The public has a bad perception of our public hospitals for a number of reasons, among them the crisis in our Accident and Emergency departments. This problem has arisen primarily as a result of the closure of hospital beds 20 years ago. In order to address the shortfall, the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has asked the private sector to build private hospitals on public hospital sites, a co-location hospital strategy.
It is a potentially high-risk strategy as the private hospitals may close if not economically viable, a reality accepted by Ms Harney, when she indicated that the Government would not provide a safety net for the hospitals. Yet, for some extraordinary reason, the Government has decided to invest through capital allowances to investors more than €1 billion in private for-profit hospitals.
The €1 billion acquired from all taxpayers, those with and without private health insurance, is being invested primarily for the benefit of those members of society who can afford private health insurance, as those without insurance will not have a right to care in these private hospitals. If the Government was investing on your behalf in building beds in public hospitals, then all taxpayers would have a right to use those beds. These would be real public beds. The Government is in essence investing in inequity.
Why is the Government investing in private hospitals when we already have excess capacity in the private system? James Sheehan, founder of the Blackrock and Galway private clinics, has described the co-location policy as "a non-starter" and indicated that his new Galway Clinic has under-used bed capacity.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions' health report published at the end of 2005 recommended that the Government abandon its co-location proposals. Economist Jim Power said the plan could create a "market failure" and advised that direct Government investment would represent better value for money. VHI medical director Bernadette Carr has indicated that some of the planned private hospitals will fail. In addition, with losses of €35 million this year, VHI is unlikely to be rushing to fund the provision of services in these new hospitals.
So why are the Government and this Minister investing your taxes in risky ventures and why are several hospitals and their medical boards throughout the State supporting this policy? Research on co-location by Dr Michael Wynne, University of Wollongong, Australia (www.uow.edu.au), and by Prof Ross Barnett, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, provides some of the answers. The Ictu health report also provides some reasons for this policy. There are certain advantages to investor-owned co-located private hospitals that explain support for this entity.
These include: reduced capital outlay for Government and quick delivery of infrastructure; sharing the costs of technology and intensive care; "hotel" facilities for patients; affiliation of the private hospital with a prestigious public hospital, enhancing the status of the private hospital in the public eye; greater financial returns to investors from access to private patients in the public hospital; increased incomes for doctors as investors and/or as practising clinicians; leveraged regulation of the private sector in planning bed capacity; cessation of two-tier public hospital care; reduction in Government subsidisation of the private sector and increased health sector employment.
But disadvantages may outweigh advantages. They include: loss of income to public hospitals from private patients; reduced quality in hospital care resulting from fewer qualified staff in private hospitals; higher premiums for private health insurance; higher costs to the taxpayer through Government subsidisation of health insurance premiums; an increase in overall costs to taxpayers for healthcare due to an increase in consumption, accentuated by a private health insurance payment system which encourages procedural over-supply; the drawing of key resources from the public system such as nurses, doctors and administrators trained at taxpayers' expense; the institutionalisation of two-tier hospital care; inequity in access to specialist care created by private health insurance; loss of motivation and autonomy for health professionals from competition in healthcare and the possible closure of private hospitals.
I am concerned about the medical profession's support of the Government's policy on co-location and privatisation. Recently, the Australian Medical Association in Victoria, which had supported similar Australian government reforms in the mid-1990s, changed its policy on hospital privatisation, stating: "The operating risks, in terms of range and quality of services are of such magnitude that they can only be safely borne by the public sector."
The Government's and this Minister's proposals should have been critically reviewed before implementation, as taxpayers' money is being used to further enrich wealthy investors, increase inequity in specialist care, increase unwanted capacity in the private sector and undermine the public sector. Health policy researchers and economists the world over recommend that governments invest in the public health service rather than use taxpayers' money to assist the private sector, because resorting to private finance is more likely to harm publicly-financed systems, and parallel private hospital systems do not significantly reduce pressure on the public system.
I believe we should have an equitable quality-driven healthcare service for all of our people, but as we can see from recent EU surveys we languish at the bottom of the health system league table. The Government and the Minister for Health's policy on hospitals will result in reduced quality and an increasingly inequitable hospital service, that is in complete contradiction to the principles of the Government's own health strategy announced in 2001.
December 2005
THE GOVERNMENT should scrap plans to build private hospitals on the grounds of public hospitals according to a major new independent report, which was funded by IMPACT and other health unions.
The report, by US academic Dale Tussing and Irish journalist Maev-Anne Wren, says the Government’s approach will not free up as many private beds in public hospitals as claimed because private hospitals concentrate on relatively simple - and profitable – elective surgery.
And it will cost us billions in wasted tax breaks.
The Health Report: A New Agenda For Health Care Reform says private hospitals will receive €40 million in tax breaks for every €100 million they invest, plus the value of the public land on which the hospital is built.
But they will keep entire control of the hospitals and could even sell them off as apartments or hotels after a few years.
“It would be better a better use of state funds to invest in a public hospital, an institution which the state controls and to which the Government could ensure all citizens gain equal access based on need,” it says.
The comprehensive study also reveals the extent of public funding for private health care in our hospitals. “Taxpayers in the bottom half of the income distribution contribute to the private care of those in the upper half” because hospital charges don’t reflect the true cost of providing private care.
The system is further stacked against public patients because of the way consultants are paid. They get a salary for treating public patients regardless of how many they treat. But they receive a fee for each of their private patients. That means they can only increase their earnings by treating private, rather than public, patients.
The authors recommend a common waiting list for public and private patients, with consultants paid in the same way regardless of whether the patient is public or private.
The report also says the cap on staff recruitment has “further shifted health care to the private sector” through the use of agency staff, the tax-subsidised expansion of private nursing homes, and the National Treatment Purchase Fund.
Launching the report last month, ICTU General Secretary David Begg said privatisation was occurring by stealth. “This insidious trend is built on the myth that it will cost the taxpayer nothing and will deliver extra capacity for the health service. This new study comprehensively demolishes that myth.
“But if this trend is allowed to continue unchecked it will irreparably damage our health service,” he said.
In 80 recommendations, the report effectively calls on the Government to return to, and build upon, the approach set out in the 2001 Health Strategy, the Primary Care Strategy and the Hanly report. But its strong endorsement of Hanly recognises that its success depends on massive improvements in primary and community care, ambulance services, regional hospitals, public transport and road quality.
i will agree with one point though. being from the south east i can tell you that no-one in their right mind wants to get on the wrong side of the radiotherapy groups. they are a very powerful lobby group and have huge public sympathy on their side
Cain, even if your post was only half as long it would still be clear that the governments plans are unfair, inefficient and dangerous. I favour public sector delievery where medical decisions are made on the basis of medical need rather than profit; however, the public sector is also in need of huge reform. It is simply intolerable that we are spending 17% more than the OECD average on health care and not getting the standard of service we need. The sustainability of public sector delivery of our health services requres better use of our resources, wage moderation and greater flexibility from staff. We need better value for money and maybe if the public sector could deliver this, we would not need these ill-conceived dallianaces with the private sector.
http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullst ... alue*.html
The political establishment lacks both vision and courage.
True Rover but who says Sinn Féin are on the wrong side of the Radiotherapy Group?
sinn fein and cullinane were on the wrong side this morning!!
DT,
Do you honestly think that the people of Waterford don't know Sinn Fein's position regarding the provision of RadioTherapy in WRH ?
Will you ever have a bit of cop on.
What you wrote is the sort of s*hite BarryW comes out with
1,197 people agree with me.. how many agree with you ?
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