It’s difficult to understand what is happening to our health care. Looking after the sick in our communities should be a top priority. You can survive anything when you are well but if your health is affected then everything else going on in your life also suffers. Minor issues can become magnified when you’re not feeling the best.
Many years ago I found myself in hospital after developing an infection and I had to have some minor surgery. The guy in the bed next to me had lots of hair and a beard and he thought that he was Jesus. He would shout at me and complain that I was the Devil and that I should be housed elsewhere.
One day, I awoke at some point to find him standing next to my bed in his pyjamas and he was tucking into my lunch. I got a bit of a fright and I threatened to box the head off him if he didn’t get lost. But then I realised that I couldn’t actually move so the threat was pretty redundant and I was at his mercy. This poor character obviously had difficulties other than whatever it was that caused him to be attending that particular hospital and after this incident the hospital ensured that there was an attendant sitting by his bedside for the remainder of his stay.
Looking back on it now, that experience was a thing of nothing but I was very vulnerable at the time so every little annoyance became a crisis in my mind. When you’re not well or in pain the last thing you need is another distraction to add to your existing discomfort.
So I have been thinking about all the unfortunate people who are in need of treatment now and who, after being admitted to hospital, spend so much of their time on trollies. This has been happening all over the country for years and there seems to be no end in sight. Despite the promises and best efforts of so many politicians and medical administrators, the number of patients having to wait for a bed seems to be growing constantly. Being in pain and discomfort is bad enough without having to suffer the indignity of waiting for treatment in a hospital corridor.
Everyone agrees that this is not acceptable so why does it remain an issue? I haven’t heard one medical person putting forward any kind of theory that would suggest that a prolonged wait on a trolley is good for the health. Neither have I heard any politician say that having your constituents waiting on trollies is good for getting votes. So, if it is in everybody’s interest to fix the problem, why isn’t it fixed?
According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), there are between 500 and 600 patients on trolleys in hospitals across the country awaiting a bed at any given time.
I did think that our best chance of resolving the issue lay in the hands of two former Ministers for Health who were both doctors, James O’Reilly and Leo Varadkar. But disappointingly, they have both left the building and the problem remains. Both had previously suggested that it would be unwise for any politician to promise to eliminate this issue entirely because no health system had managed to completely deal with the problem so far. So is that it then?
Young doctors and nurses seem to be leaving for foreign shores in their droves. They say that they are looking for better conditions and more opportunities for advancement. Rather than stay here to work themselves into the ground, they are opting instead for a better quality of life in places like the UK and Australia where their skills are appreciated.
In a recent article in the Irish Examiner, it was reported that 371 people were transferred out of the Irish health service to be treated abroad under EU cross-border schemes. And although most of these cases relate to orthopaedics and orthodontics, an increasing number of transfers are also now focussed on general surgery at a rising cost to the State.
In response, a Department of Health spokesperson said Health Minister Simon Harris is fully committed to reducing waiting lists in 2017. Mr Harris has already instigated a five-point plan to tackle the problem of people waiting for care. One point in the plan seems to be to raise the health insurance levies by another 10% and the end result of that could well be that more consumers won’t be able to afford the cost of private health cover and will opt instead to cancel policies and take their chances with a public system that’s already up the walls.
The HSE says that 8,000 patients have come off the waiting list since August. While some of these have been treated, others have just been given an appointment for their procedure and in other cases names of people who died were removed. This was probably a good move because waiting for dead people to turn up for appointments could definitely cause delays. But despite this, substantial numbers of new patients are being added to outpatient lists every week.
It’s nice to hear that Simon Harris is committed to dealing with these issues. James and Leo were also committed but the problem got the better of both of them. It doesn’t fill me with confidence though to hear Simon saying that he was caught unawares by the outbreak of flu in the first few days of 2017. I would have thought that flu and winter went hand in hand.
Maybe the answer is to send everyone abroad for treatment. That would take the pressure off the system here and it would provide work for the Irish medical staff already working abroad. Win win.