Dear Editor,
The latest effort by the Department of Health in penalising under-achieving hospitals is mirroring tactics of the HSE, indicating a propensity for deflecting its own shortcomings onto others (“New consultants’ funding threatened for under-performing hospitals”, News, July 11th). Regrettably, it would be the patients and frontline staff who will endure the fallout from the continuous incompetence of health service management.
In Ireland, our healthcare professionals including doctors and nurses, are subjected to investigations by regulatory bodies for failures, whilst any form of substantial independent scrutinisation of the permanent health service management remains virtually non-existent. A complaint lodged against any member of a hospital’s medical team may invoke a public inquiry. However, a complaint against a hospital manager ends up being “examined” by none other than the HSE itself if it’s even considered. Independent scrutiny, where it does exist, is reduced only to High Court actions initiated by affected patients, which upon prevailing result in the taxpayer shouldering the cost, with no personal ramifications for the health service management.
This situation is allowed to continue, thanks to weak regulatory bodies, politicians, and media outlets who repeatedly fail to question the inadequacies of health service managers. As it stands, our medical and nursing personnel along with the patients are being made to subsidize the recurring underperformance by permanent health service management. More and more, the HSE appears to consider itself as a mere administrative services provider rather than a provider of health services with administrative costs and bureaucracy overshadowing any meaningful improvements in services.
Until the arrival of robust independent oversight, the status quo would remain unchallenged. The likelihood of the proposal for the same emerging from senior officials of HSE and Department of Health is slim, hence it is the duty of politicians, media and frontline representation groups to advocate for this change. Shifting the blame onto medical staff and punishing them serves only as a smokescreen to divert attention away from the ongoing absence of regulatory oversight and accountability within the permanent health service management. Yours sincerely,
RUARY MARTIN,
Sandyford,
Dublin 18.