When will we see the implementation of Harney’s ‘reform’?

SINCE Mary Harney became Minister for Health in September 2004, the buzzword of her ministry has been “reform”. That also happened to be the buzzword of her predecessors Micheál Martin and Brian Cowen (though he did coin the “Angola” tag).

From the start, Ms Harney was determined to cleave to the big picture stuff. Politically, it’s very easy to get mired in the day-to-day troubles; the crises in hospitals and clinics and with services somewhere in the country that crop up on an almost daily basis. The approach was: look, we’re not going to micro-manage every statistic that shows that 25 people are waiting on trolleys in the A&E unit of such-and-such a hospital. We can sort all those if we focus unrelentingly on the big reforms.

And the big reforms can be shorthanded as follows. The first was the appointment of Professor Brendan Drumm as head of the Health Services Executive (Ms Harney renewed her efforts to entice him after his initial refusal). The second was the controversial plan to build private facilities on the grounds of public hospitals (to free up 1,000 public beds). There was also the ambitious plan to close down smaller facilities around the country and create “centres of excellence” across a range of disciplines — paediatrics and tertiary facilities for children; proper intensive care units; A&E units; and eight centres around the country that for the diagnostics and treatment of cancer.