‘Health service was as bad then as it is now’

THERE was nothing good about the health service in 2007 upon which HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm could justify his claim for a bonus of more than €70,000, Fine Gael’s health spokesman Dr James Reilly has said.

“The health service was as bad then as it is now,” said Dr Reilly yesterday, recalling that it was a year when there was an even greater than usual plethora of health inquiries, reviews and crises.

“It was one of the darkest times in Irish healthcare that I have known,” said Dr Reilly.

“Maybe under the terms of his contract, Brendan Drumm is entitled to his payment but public morality will scream otherwise at him.”

He also believed there would be civil unrest if a general election to change the current culture of greed was not held soon.

“People are furious and frustrated and that frustration will boil over.”

Prof Drumm was awarded his bonus for 2007, when many people lost their confidence in the ability of the health authorities to ensure that high standards and quality were maintained.

In particular, there was the spectacle of Health Minister, Mary Harney, and Prof Drumm, hearing for the first time at an Oireachtas committee meeting from a HSE official about the nature and extent of the breast cancer ultrasound review at Portlaoise Hospital.

At the time, the 97 women being recalled for surgical review had not been told either.

And later in the year Susie Long, who was inspirational in her fight against bowel cancer, passed away.

Ms Long, who died in October 2007, had waited seven months for a colonoscopy and by the time she was diagnosed in March 2006, her cancer was terminal.

She highlighted her plight on RTÉ’s Liveline programme in January 2007, on the drawbacks of being a public patient.

And Karl Henry went public about his wife dying of breast cancer in April 2008, after being wrongly given the all-clear from cancer following tests at Ennis General Hospital in 2007.

This week, Mr Henry said he could not believe that a full-time radiologist had not been appointed at Ennis and that the HSE continues to depend on locum staff to read critical X-rays and scans.

Edel Kelly, a young mother of two from Kilrush, Co Clare, also died of breast cancer following a delayed diagnosis in Ennis.

Figures compiled by the Irish Nurses Organisation show that in 2007, the number of patients on trollies in hospital A&E departments increased by 30% over the previous year.

And a comparison of trolley figures between 2007 and 2009 shows that patient numbers increased by almost a third.

INO general secretary, Liam Doran, said there were more than 50,000 patient on trolleys in 2007, an average of 138 a day.

“2007 was a year when the health service was under pressure, accident and emergency overcrowding continued, waiting lists continued and the National Treatment Purchase Fund was busier than ever because the public sector could not cope,” he said.

And, said Mr Doran, it was a year frontline staff should be proud of, not Prof Drumm, because of their increased productivity.

“I always have a problem with the management of any public service seeking plaudits and gratitude for the work of frontline staff.”

Success in the health service was measured by increased levels of throughput and it was the staff who achieved that by their local work practices and local engagement.

“The idea that you have a payment arrangement that rewards senior management for the increased productivity of frontline staff is bizarre,” said Mr Doran.

The nursing official said he could accept that Prof Drumm bonus was part of his contract, but the HSE had another view when it came to rewarding nurses.

The contracts of directors of nursing stated that they should get performance related pay but that was unilaterally scrapped four months ago by the HSE, who are were seeking credit for what they did.

“That is what I find objectionable. It is the double standards and our office has been inundated with calls from members across the country asking what is going on.”