A five-month wait for a nursing home bed is no Fair Deal

Analysis from Irish Independent on 7 November 2014.

Yesterday Minister for Health Leo Varadkar declared his dissatisfaction with the fact that there are over 2,000 older people waiting 15 weeks for nursing home care. And now that the fourfold increase in the numbers of older people waiting for nursing home beds has hit the public radar, Minister Varadkar and Minister for Older People Kathleen Lynch have a “plan”.

Why who is the next health minister actually matters

See below analysis on cabinet reshuffle from Irish Independent on 4 July 2014 – New minister must realise health service can’t take more cuts. 

Nursing home residents denied essential services

Poor access to essential care services for nursing home residents exemplifies the inequalities of our system. See below column from 5 December 2013.

Is health really an issue in election 2011?

With jobs and the economy top of the election 2011 agenda, is health really a concern for voters and candidates in this election?

The health myths that have outlasted Mary Harney

See her article I wrote for crisisjam posted on politico.ie today

Mary Harney did great harm to Irish health

See here for article on this in today’s Irish Times or below for unedited version..

No relief for sickest and poorest in Budget 2011

See here for my analysis of the budget implications for health published in today’s Irish Times, with a few of the bits they left out added back in! And my mega typo corrected…

LISTENING TO Brian Lenihan’s Budget speech, you’d think the health services were going to be untouched by austerity in the years ahead. Although health services make up 27 per cent of current spending, they are just under one-third of the €2.2 billion in cuts outlined, yet they did not even get a mention.

National Recovery Plan difficult for but maybe irrelevant for health

The 4 year National Recovery Plan outlines budget cuts for health totalling €1.4 billion, 6,000 fewer staff in the public health system and patients having to pay more for essential health care. So how painful will it be in the years ahead for the health services? And will the policy aspirations actually happen given the inevitability of a change of government…

HSE redundancy scheme a fiasco

The HSE early retirement and voluntary redundancy schemes close tonight (19 November 2010). So are they the solution to getting rid of surplus HSE staff or just another example of inept health service management? 

What Mary Harney said would have to be cut from health budget

Seven days ago at the ESRI conference on resource allocation in the health sector,  Mary Harney said that the HSE is facing cuts ‘between €600,000 and one billion’. I asked her that question on the door step – so what actually did Mary Harney say?