Call for health referendum

A REFERENDUM allowing voters decide what treatments should be dispensed by the public health service could help tackle spiralling treatment costs, a top consultant has said.

Cork University Hospital (CUH) A&E chief Stephen Cusack said it was time to debate whether funding a number of small operations was preferable to one costly procedure.

“As a doctor I want to treat all my patients but, faced with spiralling costs, maybe it is time to start thinking as a nation whether we would prefer five hip operations or one heart

operation.”

He said the notion of the public deciding on which treatments should be funded had already been adopted in at least one US State.

“It is one way of looking at what could be done in trying to answer questions like: ‘Should we be doing operations on a smoker’s heart or should we be using that money for other treatments?’”

CUH consultant in radiology and clinical oncology Seamus O’Cathail said he would favour the setting up of a State panel of experts to decide on how money should be spent in the health services.

“The kind of thing they should be looking at is, if a lot of money is spent on one patient, how many others are going to lose out? We have a finite public purse and what we need is good management of fundsDr O’Cathail said capping the range of prescribed drugs was not an issue in his health board but was used in other countries as a means of cost control.

“It is quite common in parts of Britain to have a list of approved drugs rather than a free-for-all. Here we have no national agreement on what could be a useful list. There is room for negotiation on that.”

Dr Cusack said the drugs budget at CUH had “gone through the roof”.

“Take, for example, clot-busting drugs. The one we tend to use now is 1,270 a pop compared to 102 for the drug we used three years ago. But the increases are right across the board, from cardiology to cancer.”

Dr John Crown, consultant oncologist at St Vincent’s private hospital in Dublin, said he was totally opposed to limiting the range of drugs available to cancer patients. Specialising in the treatment of breast cancer, Dr Crown called on women not to let hospital bureaucrats dictate the range of treatments

available.

“Breast Cancer Advocacy groups need to be very militant and get proper lobbying going. They need to let the bureaucrats know that they are

being watched, as well as the politicians.”

Dr Crown’s comments came in the wake of weekend reports that healthcare chiefs in Dublin were considering capping the range of drugs available. The Department of Health said there is no question of this happening.