Dublin sixth best in EU for health care
But the relevance of the study, coming as it does against a backdrop of lengthy hospital waiting lists in Dublin, was called into question last night.
"I'd find it very hard to believe in terms of actual access to the services," said Fine Gael health spokeswoman, Olivia Mitchell TD.
The most recent figures from the Department of Health showed waiting lists of 2,408 patients at St Vincent's Hospital, followed by Beaumont with 2,227. In both cases, almost half of those patients had been waiting more than a year for treatment.
"I think the quality of the service once you get there is good," said Deputy Mitchell. "But it's the [numbers of] people who don't get in, and it's the unquantifiable quality of out-of-hospital services, like community care services, that mask huge misery for people.
"They're the kind of things that you cannot count and do not hear about."
The annual survey, carried out by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, evaluated quality of life in 215 cities worldwide, with standards of health and sanitation forming a key factor.
It ranked Dublin as the 23rd best city worldwide for overall quality of life unchanged from last year.
The results came as a separate survey, by Dublin radio station NewsTalk 106FM, revealed that more than one in two of 21 to 40-year-olds had been victim of a crime in the capital.
For overall quality of life, Zurich and Geneva ranked top in the Mercer survey. Zurich has consistently topped such studies, while Geneva moved up to joint first this year on account of improvements in its standards of education.
Baghdad is the least attractive city in the world for quality of life, said the survey, which quoted ongoing security concerns and the city's precarious infrastructure as factors.
US cities, meanwhile, slipped in the overall rankings this year because the increased security checks on arrival and departure from the country were deemed to affect quality of life. Honolulu and San Francisco rated highest, both at 24th in the table.
The quality of life analysis was based on an evaluation of 39 criteria for the 215 individual cities, including political, social, economic and environmental factors.
It is carried out by Mercer to help governments and major companies which are placing employees abroad.
In the health and sanitation category, Calgary scored highest, followed by Honolulu.
The lowest-ranking city was Baku in Azerbaijan, where hospital and medical services were in short supply.
Athens, home to the Olympic Games this year, was the worst-ranked city in Western Europe in terms of health, principally because of the high level of pollution in the city which has been identified as a cause of respiratory illness.
