So disheartening - Hospital overcrowding record

IT must be terribly disheartening for those involved in trying to reform our health services to have to acknowledge that overcrowding in hospital emergency departments and wards has increased by 51%, when compared with the same month last year.

This is, especially in the light of all of the efforts being made to resolve the issue, a spectacular increase, especially as it comes during the usually quieter months of the year.

It gives a substantial degree of credence to the declaration made by Health Minister Leo Varadkar in recent weeks that our €13bn health service needs something around another €1bn a year to satisfy the demands put on it.

And there’s the rub — are we prepared to pay the extra taxes needed to resolve the situation or are we prepared to dig our heels in and demand better outcomes for the money already invested in health services? The answer is probably a mixture of both but the recent European Commission report that found we spend above the EU average on health but achieve below average outcomes should frame the debate.