HSE chief’s €32,000 bonus ‘is premature’

HEALTH professionals and opposition TDs have described the payment of a €32,000 bonus on top of a €400,000 salary to health service chief Professor Brendan Drumm as premature and incomprehensible.

According to the HSE, the bonus was based on Prof Drumm achieving leadership, staff management and budgetary targets such as balancing the budget since his uptake of the post. The payment was also made on the proviso he completed the transition from the old health board structure to the four-region Health Service Executive structure.

Prof Drumm has been head of the HSE for nine months and is charged with implementing the Government’s plan to modernise the health services.

His salary of €400,000 a year, plus 25% pension payments and a car, have made him the highest paid official in the public service.

Hospital consultants, doctors and patient representative groups described the bonus payment as premature and said they cannot see any improvements in hospital wards since he took control of health reform.

Patients Together spokeswoman Janette Byrne said the ordinary man and woman on the street would question how such a bonus could be paid when Professor Drumm has made no significant achievement in improving the daily workings of the health service.

“It is incomprehensible that on top of a massive salary, money can be found to pay a bonus that is equal to the average industrial wage. Yet, at the same time, there is still the same pitiful scenes at A&E, most MRI scanners are funded by community fundraising and women are travelling from Donegal to Dublin for cancer services,” she said.

Irish Hospital Consultant Association Secretary General, Finbarr Fitzpatrick, said consultants were surprised that a performance-related payment could be made just nine months into the job.

“There has been no demonstrable improvement in the hospital services. We welcomed Prof Drumm’s appointment and looked forward to it but we are surprised that this sum is being paid. Strategic reform may be going on but there is no improvement in the hospital ward or corridors even.”

Fine Gael’s Dr Liam Twomey questioned how a bonus could be granted when he saw no evidence of an improvement in service administration.

A spokesman for the HSE defended the bonus, saying Prof Drumm has headed one of the most significant structural changes ever in the public service.

“He oversees a budget of more than €12 billion annually and is accountable for a workforce in excess of 100,000. He also regularly appears before the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee and is personably accountable for health service funding, as voted for by the Dáil,” the spokesman said.

Drumm deal

AS part of Professor Drumm’s employment package, it was agreed by the Tánaiste that the former paediatrician could bring his own ‘kitchen cabinet’ with him to the HSE.

* Up to €4.5 million will be spent over the next five years on his team of special advisors

* Under contracts agreed last year, the five advisors will receive salaries of €163,000 to €202,500 for working just 135 days a year

* Three out of five of the advisors are entitled to overtime payments of up to €1,500 per day for an additional 27 days

* Amongst the high-profile appointees are Maureen Lynott, Dr Sean McGuire and Karl Anderson.