Consultants ‘to blame for mental illness crisis’
Speaking on RTÉ radio yesterday, Health Minister Mary Harney said: “It’s the usual story - give us more, give us more money, give us more resources.”
She was referring to the consultants’ reluctance to participate in mental health tribunals, which, when established, will review the cases of people detained involuntarily in psychiatric hospitals.
However, organisations representing the country’s 290 consultant psychiatrists have advised their members not to take part. The dispute centres on how many additional consultants will be appointed by the Government to relieve psychiatrists working on issues relating to the tribunals.
In a direct bid to psychiatrists to sit down and resolve the dispute, Ms Harney said yesterday: “Can I just appeal to them please, these are among the sickest people in the country, they’re a very vulnerable group, we want to have those tribunals established next year and if there’s any wish I’d make for Christmas to the Irish Hospital Consultant’s Association (IHCA) and the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), it is please co-operate with the establishment of the tribunals.”
However, assistant secretary general of the Irish Hospital Consultant’s Association Dónal Duffy said the Tánaiste had so far failed to introduce the legislation necessary to establish the tribunals.
A spokesperson for Ms Harney said this was untrue, that all that remained was for the minister to sign the commencement order, but lack of agreement with the consultants was holding her up.
Ms Harney, who is seeking to negotiate a new contract with consultants, said A&E patients should not be charged a fee, regardless of whether they were public or private. She said “the notion of a two-track system” in A&E was unacceptable and could lead to a situation, where, if two patients presented in similar condition, the consultant might base his decision on who to treat in “favour of cash”.
Mr Duffy said consultants in emergency medicine “didn’t want that happening either” but that if a patient attending A&E specifically requested to be treated privately, the consultant was entitled contractually to payment. Similarly, if a patient was admitted to hospital privately after being first seen in A&E, the A&E consultant should be entitled to the private fee other clinicians received on treating the patient in hospital.
Ms Harney reiterated her pledge to continue investment in primary care, pointing out it already receives 65% of the health spend. She said hospitals have to be “a place of last resort”, and that although there would be “no silver lining” to the trolley crisis, the experience of being on trolleys would come to an end, with figures already down 15% this year.
Ms Harney pledged to continue looking after elderly people, focusing on home support packages. She vowed to press ahead with plans to centralise specialist services in the regions.
“Politically, it’s going to be unpopular, and it’s not just about party politics, it’s about medical politics. But when politics come first, the patient loses out.”
Ms Harney promised a decision on plans for a new children’s hospital in Dublin by early February at the latest; the roll-out of BreastCheck nationally by 2007; extra staff for new services and greater transparency for parents infected with the MRSA superbug.
