Health service - People want action not promises

HEALTH Minister Micheál Martin’s commitment to press ahead with the radical Brennan Commission report on how to get more value for money in the health service deserves to be applauded.

Yet, it has to be said that the concerns voiced by Professor Niamh Brennan on the apparent tardiness in putting it into action were perfectly understandable.

Given the perceived lack of urgency in tackling the manifest problems of the country’s ailing health service, Prof Brennan can be forgiven for speaking out on a matter of grave public importance.

That she is the wife of Justice Minister Michael McDowell has lent added weight to her outspoken criticism amid fears the commission’s call for a root and branch overhaul of the health service was being ignored.

Indeed, there can be little confidence in the record of a department which, since the summer of 1997, has commissioned a whopping 121 reports, studies and reviews of the health service.

Against this backdrop, it is refreshing that Mr Martin is busy gearing up the system with the aim of creating a more efficient public health service. What people want is action not political promises.