HSE says systems ‘not fit for future needs’; Doctors vote for industrial action
The HSE has acknowledged its systems, as they stand, are “not fit for future needs”, as doctors overwhelmingly voted in favour of industrial action over “unjustifiable pay inequality faced by consultants”.
Speaking at the launch of the body’s 2020 national service plan, Dr Stephanie O’Keeffe, the HSE’s national director of strategic planning and transformation, said despite the inadequacies of the system as it stands, it is “critically important for us to continue our good work in terms of maintaining improvement in life expectancy, and in moving much more demonstrably towards a community-enabled healthcare system”.
The launch of the €17.1bn plan sees the HSE’s budget jump by 6.3%, or €1bn, on the 2019 figure, with an extra €50m to be made available by the Department of Health as part of its revised estimates.
However, the launch was overshadowed by the decision by Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) affiliated hospital consultants and doctors to overwhelmingly ballot to back industrial action early in the new year over pay and recruitment issues.
That vote was passed with 94% in favour, with the IMO saying in a statement that it had resulted from doctors no longer being able to “tolerate the decimation of health services in Ireland, and the life-threatening effect this is having on patients throughout the country”.
The organisation’s key demand is an end to the pay inequality currently experienced by consultants, which it said is “based solely on when they were appointed and is leading to us being unable to recruit consultants to our health services”.
At present, roughly 750 permanent consultant positions within the health service remained unfilled, a fact which is widely accepted as contributing to the State’s enormous health waiting lists.
Last August, the key recommendation of the de Buitléir report on the removal of private care from public hospitals was that consultants’ starting salaries be immediately restored to their pre-2012 levels of €182,000, some €51,000 more than the current starting point.
HSE chief executive Paul Reid meanwhile emphasised at the launch the fact that the executive’s cost overruns have been cut by 50% over the past two years, from €636m in 2018 to €319m as of end September of this year.
“There is no doubt that overall we aren’t currently delivering the kind of health service that the public expects and which we aspire to,” Mr Reid said, however.
He said the new plan, the first issued since the re-establishment of the HSE’s board earlier this year, represents an “important first step” on the road to reforming Ireland’s healthcare systems. That commitment to reform “has not proven easy to deliver”, he said.
“Certainly it will not be achieved within a single service planning cycle. But it can and must be done, over the coming years.” Mr Reid stressed immediate reform would be predicated on two main priorities, as targeted by both the executive and the Department of Health.
They are: The implementation of new organisational delivery structures at national, regional and local levels in the context of health and social care delivery; and the expansion of the system’s capacity and the improvement of utilisation of that capacity.
