Martin rejects claim that health reform plan is ‘gathering dust’

HEALTH Minister Micheál Martin yesterday rejected charges that an action plan for health service reform is gathering dust on a shelf.

Prof Niamh Brennan, wife of Justice Minister, Michael McDowell, who chaired the task force that drew up the plan for Minister Martin, has again criticised the Government, claiming not one recommendation has been implemented since he received it seven months ago.

Rejecting the professor’s criticism the minister said he would be announcing “very shortly” the members of group who would implement the reform package.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Children pointed out that all the members had been appointed.

Prof Brennan, who lectures on economics at the University College Dublin, has never been shy about criticising the Government’s failure to implement the action plan.

Last September, she expressed concern about the delay in making the key appointments, when it had been stated in early summer that the implementation steering group would be appointed “shortly”.

She has been left wondering what exactly did the word ‘shortly’ mean.

The task force completed its deliberations at the end of January and its report was presented to Minister Martin in the third week of March.

The professor, speaking on her own behalf, said she would have preferred to see a “can do, do it now, make it happen, attitude” being taken.

Addressing an audience of healthcare workers at the weekend Prof Brennan accused the department of dragging its feet in order to give health board management time to resist the changes.

She repeated her attack at the annual meeting of the Economic Policy Conference in Kenmare in Co Kerry.

Prof Brennan said there was anecdotal evidence of Government reports being left on the shelf in the past.

She was now worried because while the Government was completely silent on some of the report’s recommendations, commitments in relation to others were made in such general terms that it was unclear exactly what was being planned.

“This is of concern. In the meantime, there is a risk that existing management in the health boards may put in place entrenchment mechanisms that make change more difficult,” she said.

Irish Medical Organisation president, Dr Joe Barry, echoed Prof Brennan’s concerns. “Task forces are often ways of procrastinating and putting issues on the shelf. Unfortunately, there are too many examples of that in Ireland.”

Dr Barry said the jury was still out on whether the minister’s health strategy was merely rhetoric.