‘Cynics’ dictate delivery of health service

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, and not the Department of Health, is dictating the delivery of healthcare in Ireland, according to the outgoing president of the Irish Medical Organisation.

Peader Gilligan, an emergency medicine consultant at Beaumont Hospital, said the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) had motives other than the optimisation of patient care and was exploiting divisions between rival medical organisations.