Health Service Budgets and idiocy

December 10th, 2007

You know they keep telling us we are spending more money on Health Care than other countries, and in fairness I kind of believe them. The problem is the money is being spent on administrators who couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery. I read the following article in todays’ Independent. Looks like the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. It’d be funny if it was happening in a Health Service.

“A FARCICAL situation has emerged whereby one hospital has a new CT scanner but no staff, while a nearby hospital has the specialised staff but no CT machine to operate.

Opposition TDs have criticised the fiasco, saying it further highlights the fragmented nature of the Health Service Executive (HSE) and an inability by management to marry resources with personnel.

Nenagh Hospital in Tipperary has a state-of-the-art CT scanner and a room built specially to house it — but the required specialised staff numbers have not been sanctioned.

But less than 60km away in Ennis General Hospital, Co Clare, funding has been approved for more than six staff to operate the CT service. However, there is no scanner and nowhere to house it.

Labour councillor Alan Kelly said that with the ongoing recruitment ban, there is little hope of Nenagh getting additional funding for the specially trained staff. He said staff and management at the hospital are increasingly frustrated at “meeting brick walls” at every turn.

“The manager of the hospital finds the whole situation crazy,” said Mr Kelly.

“He has been trying to get the funding but this year Nenagh Hospital got one of lowest allocations in the budget in the country.”

He accused the HSE of having an agenda and attempting to close the hospital by stealth.

However, he said the local community will fight them every step of the way, pointing out that the hospital covers a huge area.

There are also concerns the scanner will be obsolete before it becomes operational because the technology moves forward so quickly.

The same problem existed in Louth for some time. Patients from Louth County Hospital in Dundalk had to be ferried to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda for treatment. The scanner in Dundalk was opened in April by Health Minister Mary Harney but it is still not operating for a full working week. Staff from Drogheda travel to Dundalk to operate it as there is no separate staff allocation.

Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly said local managers are becoming increasingly frustrated. “This is just another example of the ongoing and systematic mismanagement of the HSE,” he said.

“Local managers are getting more frustrated because to get anything done they have to go all the way to the top to get it back down again to local level.”

In Mallow, Co Cork, the same type of scanner has been idle for a year since it arrived, three years after the date it was first promised.

In August ads were placed to find a clinical specialist radiographer and senior radiographer. However, thanks to the ongoing recruitment ban, patients continue to have to travel by ambulance to Cork University Hospital for CT scans.”

Entry Filed under: Opinion, Ireland