Letters to the Editor: Two-tier cancer care is inequitable
OECD research dating back to 2004 shows that private health insurance is the single largest contributor to inequity of access to healthcare. Picture: Courtneyk/iStock
Sadly, this development follows in the steps of our two-tier system of hospital care for most health services since the introduction of private health insurance back in 1957.
General practitioners are used to such two-tier hospital care and are relieved when patients tell them they have private health insurance as it means quicker access to hospital diagnostics and care.
Indeed, this inequity was found in a 2004 report by the OECD’s health equity research group of 21 OECD countries that found Ireland had the third most inequitable hospital system of the 21 countries studied. Holland had the most equitable.
The OECD researchers found that private health insurance was the single largest contributor to this inequity of access. The 2011 Fine Gael/Labour government proposed a universal health insurance system for all that would have substantially removed this inequity.
Unfortunately, a less than critically appraised ESRI report for the Department of Health somehow convinced the minister for health at the time, Leo Varadkar, to dispense with the former minister for health, James Reilly’s, proposals for equitable access to care.
A political leader with excellent leadership qualities would be required to implement the introduction of universal health insurance and rid us of our two-tier hospital system, previously described by Professor Sara Burke of Trinity College, in her book on inequality in Irish health care, as Irish apartheid.
Unfortunately, for all its potential, Sláintecare cannot achieve this as the plan leaves private health insurance in place as a funding model of our hospital care,
With the 20th anniversary of the smoking ban, most publicity has been dedicated to the positive benefits to derive from the the prohibition on smoking in public places.
While I was and remain an advocate of the above legislation I am equally at a loss that back in 2004 when the legislation was enacted that subsidiary legislation was not also introduced simultaneously to tackle the obvious implications the prohibition of smoking in public places has had on society.
With the concept of the simple ashtray in public places disappearing and not replaced by cigarette receptacles, we now have the litter problem where smokers on entering all public buildings drop cigarette butts on the ground.
As one on regular litter patrol I can confirm from personal experience that more than 60% of the items I remove are cigarette butts.
As a result of successive governments for the last 20 years failing to introduce the desired legislation, I have received the deaf ear to my appeals to Cork County Council to introduce a scheme, where on request from ratepayers, the local authority would provide cigarette receptacles outside the relevant premises for obvious reasons.
Finally, considering the amount of lip service paid by all government departments to the issue of litter, would it be too much to expect that the above bureaucrats would ensure that all state buildings accessible to the public would have a cigarette receptacle outside same?
This so-called hate speech bill needs to be scrapped as it is flawed — 'Mick Clifford: Hate speech bill in danger of failing due to noise around relatively minor element' (Irish Examiner, April 4).
Mr Clifford argues that it is in danger of failing because of noise around a very minor element is valid. But the noise is justified and it calls out serious flaws: Flawed law is poor law and can never be justified.
As it stands, the potential in this bill to attack and undermine freedom of speech is a far too risky and dangerous potential to accept.
The very small risk that it could introduce the notion of a “thought crime” is still a risk and therefore a hazard that needs to be eliminated.
To eliminate the hazard we need to eliminate the bill.
What’s happening in Palestine is a violation of reproductive rights.
We write as a group of academics and activists whose work is committed to advancing reproductive rights and justice.
On January 26, the International Court of Justice recognised the plausibility of genocide being committed by the Israeli State in Gaza.
To date, this has resulted in the murder of more than 30,000 Palestinians since October 7. This is an escalation of violence towards Palestinian people which has been ongoing for over 75 years and is rooted in the settler colonial occupation of Palestine by Israel.
