THE MAJORITY of people working in the acute hospital system know it is broken as care is often ineffective, too expensive and occasionally unsafe, a consultant surgeon said last night.
Dr Finbar Lennon, of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, said attempts to reform the health service have largely been resisted but everyone would acknowledge that the status quo cannot continue. “Change is inevitable,” Mr Lennon said during the Pfizer/ Irish Times Health Debate at Dundalk Institute of Technology. “The consequences may be good or bad but it will happen and it is happening.”
Marie O’Connor, a journalist and member of the Health Service Action Group, said that, if the Health Service Executive (HSE) continues with plans to centre hospital services in larger facilities, people would die for the lack of proper care in the community.
She said privatisation of services was at the centre of the HSE’s hospital reform plans and this would lead to poorer standards of care for patients at a higher cost.
