Treatment abroad - It’s not working

IT is one thing for the HSE to tie itself up in knots in administering the health service but it is quite another to extent that bureaucratic mindset to the detriment of those who depend on it for their very lives.

The latest example of the HSE's excessive bureaucracy is the convoluted way it administers the Treatment Abroad Scheme, a system designed to allow patients get healthcare not available here.

Ombudsman Peter Tyndall has concluded that the scheme is too difficult to access and puts too much of a burden on the patient who doesn't even have a proper right to appeal if a request for treatment abroad is refused.

Amy Foley, from Midleton in Co Cork, who has a rare condition, described her dealings with the HSE under the scheme as “traumatic and heartbreaking.”

Karen Brennan from Galway was another of the complainants. She said: "I think that with regard to process and systems that it is not really about taking care of people. It's not working. It's not a consistent process."

It is hard to argue with that conclusion.