HSE adopts tough love approach

YOU really want to be careful where you get sick in this country.

And, if you’re planning to relocate somewhere, you should add “a good hospital” to your list of must-haves.

Middle-class parents may have become obsessed with school league tables but medical students and ambitious doctors will also be looking at interest at the “league tables” being produced by the Health Service Executive (HSE) to show improvements in reaching targets.

In a new policy move, it’s now your position on this table that could dictate the resources you receive from the HSE. After years of budgets being powered by the parish pump, the HSE is adopting the tough love approach. Bad performance, tough budget. While the addition of 60 hospital consultants is widely welcomed, there is an undercurrent of concern that patients could suffer.

For years, we’ve moaned about the two-tier health system. Now, we could end up with two tiers within the bottom tier. People spoke about geographical discrimination in cancer services — well this could be seen as State-sponsored discrimination.

IHCA general secretary Finbarr Fitzpatrick has warned that some hospitals have been unable to meet the targets set by the HSE through no fault of their own such as because, for example, “there were no places in the community to release long-stay patients to”.

“It’s not fair to penalise them. The tables suggest that they weren’t reaching standards but it doesn’t mean that they weren’t doing their utmost,” he said.

Liz McManus also said that patients could suffer because of an “unequal playing field”.

& “In most cases patients do not have a choice as to what hospital they may be attending and it is vital that they are not further disadvantaged for matters over which they have no control,” she said.

While this new business approach should bring greater efficiency, we should hope that figures won’t be massaged by hospitals to meet targets.

We’re dealing in lives here, not widgets.