HSE should see Hiqa as ally not foe - Overseeing our health services

OVER the weekend, HSE chief Tony O’Brien warned that there is no clear national vision for our health service and that the HSE has been starved of the funding needed to deliver reform.

He also said, during an interview with The Sunday Business Post, that budgetary timetables worked against long-term or even medium-term planning.

Minister for Health Leo Varadkar said he largely accepted Mr O’Brien’s criticisms, pointing out that he has already made many of those points himself. Such harmony, such a recognition of less than ideal delivery, between the two most powerful figures in Irish health raises pretty obvious and disheartening questions. It deepens the sense of public bewilderment — after all if they can’t fix it who can?