Sir, – Over the coming months this nation will undertake a mass immunisation programme of unprecedented scale. Many outstanding professionals are working very hard on making this a success and the appointment of a taskforce in this regard is a welcome development.
Regrettably, it appears the HSE will have a key role in the delivery of this complex operation. This is the same organisation that, despite ever growing budgets, has a proven record of failure, as demonstrated by our endless waiting lists and trolley counts over the past decade. A strident, heavily unionised public sector mindset has led to inefficiency on an epic scale, a fact ignored by left wing politicians and commentators for whom the perennial “solution” is simply to demand billions more of taxpayers’ money.
Much as I would like to believe that the HSE has recently developed a culture of universal administrative excellence, I fear the Covid-19 vaccination programme already has all the hallmarks of a looming Irish health service fiasco.
To date no details of a coherent implementation plan have emerged, although we have known for months that multiple vaccines were in the pipeline. How many new staff have been trained to provide immunisation? How many centres for mass vaccination have been secured and equipped in advance? What IT systems are in place to ensure accurate record keeping?
The traditional HSE approach to such matters, ie, “Get the GPs to do it and let them find out in the newspapers”, is unlikely to succeed in this instance. This is partly due to the complex storage requirements for at least one of the Covid-19 vaccines. However, the refusal of many younger doctors to work outside of the greater Dublin area is a far greater problem, albeit one that my profession chooses to ignore.
Ultimately I fear our nation will face yet another lockdown in the springtime due to our inability to organise a vaccination campaign. The impact of such a failure on the livelihoods of millions of citizens (who do not enjoy the privileges of public sector employment) would be devastating.
There is no room for political correctness, left-wing virtue signalling or union intransigence in this current crisis. Those dedicated professionals with the skills and determination to organise the Covid-19 vaccination programme must not be hobbled by public sector inefficiency. – Yours, etc,
Dr RUAIRI HANLEY,
Navan,
Co Meath.