Doctor’s diagnosis of service ills endorsed

I AGREE with Dr Billy Christopher (Letters, November 27). What a proclamation of commonsense.

He apportioned blame equally on government, local authorities and the health services. He scapegoated no single one of these entities, but rather tried to find a solution.

I would disagree with his use of the word “insidious” in regard to the changes to the way hospitals were run from the late 1970s. I would use the word “stealth”, the way central government took a more active role in using health boards to replace local health authorities.

I don’t believe there was a premeditated approach to the health system and therein lies the problem: there was no planning at all. By taking clinical decisions out of the hands of primary care physicians and making them on an ad-hoc basis, they ensured these decisions were politically motivated.

The result of this, as Dr Christopher highlighted, was to appoint more administrators, thus creating the bureaucratic monster we have today.

Dr Christopher’s solution is to start afresh, with hospital services run by healthcare professionals, funded by central government through health insurance. Those who could afford to pay medical insurance keep doing so, but those who could not would have their premiums paid by central government. As he says, this sounds simple, but sometimes the simplest ideas work best.

Cllr Dave O’Callaghan

Ballyclough

Mallow

Co Cork