Attack
on our Health Services

The HSE is facing huge financial problems. With some €800m worth of savings to be made this year patients will continue to be the first casuality of the cutbacks.

Of the 500 hospital beds currently closed, it’s expected that:

• At least a further 600 hospital beds will be taken out of the system (10% of bed complement);
  
• 11 A&E departments will be “rationalised”;
  
• Frontline staff will be cut, and
  
• Critical overtime will stop.

Recent budgets have also seen:

• Withdrawal of over-70s medical card;
  
• 50% increase in A&E charges;
  
• 14% on inpatient charges;
  
• 20% increase in private & semi-private bed charges;
  
• The threshold for the Drugs Payment Scheme increased to €100 per month, and
  
• Long stay charges increased by 28%.

Rather than attacking our health services through the withdrawal of services, such as life-saving preventive cervical cancer vaccine for a minimal savings of €9.7m, the Government must control wasteful spending & approving a redundancy programme to reduce needless management & administrative bureaucracy within the HSE.


A&E Trolley Waits
Situation Remains as Bad as 2006

Despite various promises, plans & initiatives over the past 7 years, hospital A&E Departments remain dangerously overcrowded with hundreds of patients lying on trolleys in unhygienic corridors suffering indignity, discomfort & distress.

• November 2004, Minister Harney launched her €70m A&E 10-point-plan to solve the A&E problem;
• March 2006, the problem escalated to what Minister Harney described as a 'national emergency' with an average of 336 patients on trolleys;
• April 2009, A&E trolley waits remain at unacceptably high levels with an average of more than 300 patients on trolleys every day this year.

The situation remains as bad as it was in 2006. Minister Harney's new plans to “restructure” A&E in 8 Dublin hospitals & 3 Cork City hospitals will result in even more patients in fewer hospitals putting increased pressure on already overstretched & overcrowded services.


Hospital Waiting Lists
Government has Lost Trust of People

In the 2002 Programme for Government, Fianna Fail and the PDs promised that no patient would wait more than three months for treatment.

• By end of 2008 we still have 20,000 in-patients on NTPF waiting lists, 50% of which are waiting more than 6 months for treatment.
  
• When we include the numbers of people waiting up to 3 months, before they are counted on the NTPF list, the figure doubles to 40,000.
  
• Outpatient waiting lists are significantly worse with more than 150,000 patients on outpatient waiting lists, with some patients waiting up to 8 years for treatment.

In 2008, some 216,000 bed-days were lost in our hospitals (where a bed could have been freed up for another patient) because patients had nowhere to go for their next phase of treatment, hundreds of patients lay on trolleys in overcrowded A&E departments & the number of cancelled operations increased by 10%, with over 31,000 procedures cancelled over the past two years.

Rather than address the problems, the Government has wasted money through the quick-fix NTPF. We must pursue a more rigorous and effective approach to the management of waiting lists & waiting times like that achieved in Northern Ireland.


Primary Care Strategy
Years Have Passed with no Progress

Eight years since the publication of the Primary Care Strategy (2001), primary care remains fragmented, inadequately resourced & under staffed.

The HSE is rapidly creating phantom primary care teams that are understaffed, under funded & do not have the appropriate infrastructure required for modern care.

We were supposed to have 300 teams by 2008, 400 by 2009 and 500 by 2011 – however years have passed with no progress. To date there are only some 97 teams in place, of which only 10 are fully functioning.


Mental Health
All Vision, No Change

Almost half way into the strategy we are not any closer to the vision set out in 2006.

• Approximately 200 children are admitted to adult centres on an annual basis.
• Development funding allocated to the implementation of the plan in 2006 and 2007 has been diverted to meet deficits and little to no funding was allocated for 2008 and 2009.
• Independent Monitoring Group report published on 20 April 2009 stated that, “it is very disappointed with the rate of progress in implementing A Vision for Change”.

Without proper funding, services will continue to be ad hoc in nature; deficiencies in community mental health teams will persist; basic staffing will remain unavailable; long waiting lists will continue & inappropriate long-stay wards will remain open.


Harney’s Reform Agenda
Stopped before it Started

Minister Harney’s overall reform agenda has been extremely slow to implement & has not served to improve patient care or access to services:

Co-Location: almost 4 years since the announcement of the Minster’s co-location plan, not one bed of the promised 1,000 beds has been put in place.

Fair Deal: announced in Dec 2006 is now over 12 months late; a lot of worrying questions remain unanswered about certain aspects of the Bill, particularly in relation to land/assets.

Over 70s Medical Card: saving hoped to be achieved through the withdrawal of the over-70s medical card have been withered away because the Government didn’t think the policy through properly, whole situation caused needless stress for thousands of elderly people.

Private Health Insurance (PHI): is becoming unaffordable with the introduction of Harney’s new PHI levy.

Wholesaler Margin: saving hoped to be achieved through the reduction in the wholesale margin were ineffective because the HSE & the Minster decided to act unilaterally. Taxpayer will now have to foot the bill for the legal costs of this action.