€600m winter plan 'won't fix endemic problems' in health system

Consultants have warned the €600m allocated for the health service in the winter plan won't go far enough. File Picture: Larry Cummins

The €600m funding injection for the HSE’s Winter Plan, while welcome, is an admission of sorts that the healthcare system is under-resourced and not working.

That is according to Dr Gabrielle Colleran, head of department in radiology in the National Maternity Hospital, who was speaking at the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) annual conference.

“As we look at this plan, €600m is a lot of money in the context of the overall health budget. 

"About €4.5bn goes to our acute hospitals, so €600m is a significant injection. It is multiples of what we got last year. 

"The challenge for this winter budget is that in reality, we shouldn’t need such a budget.

“We should have adequate capacity for winter surges in our system. By virtue of the fact that we need it, it is almost an admission of failure that our current resourcing and strategy isn’t adequate and isn’t working.

“The €600m, while it is called the winter plan, in many ways it is the start of trying to address some of the chronic under-resourcing, a lack of infrastructure, the lack of staffing, that represents decades of under-investment in health,” she said.

Countries like Germany that are very successful view investment in healthcare as an investment in their population and want people living longer and happier lives, Ms Colleran said.

“It is an investment for them. In Ireland, we have traditionally looked at it as a negative thing, that increasing the spend in health is something that we have to try to avoid, and if we are doing anything more than inflation, it is almost a negative thing. In many ways, it is a change of mindset.” 

While €600m is a lot, only €2.3m is allocated to cancer services, she said.

When you look at the impact of Covid-19 on cancer, we had delays in people presenting to their GPs, and being referred onto hospitals for investigations, because of the impact of lockdown. 

"That will have a knockdown effect on cancer outcomes. We don’t know what that is until more time evolves so we can compare this year with previous years. A lot of time there can be a lag.

“In reality, while €600m is a lot of money, is it going to be enough for us to be able to be confident that we will have the staff and capacity so that everybody needs access to staff and care this winter will have it? 

"Most of us working in the sector are already concerned.” 

Those concerns include rising seeing trolley numbers, scheduled care being cancelled, and staff testing positive for Covid-19, she said.

“The €600m will not fix the entrenched capacity, staffing, and infrastructure deficits, that unfortunately have been endemic in our healthcare system for over two decades.”