HEART BEAT:The attempt to put the blame on 'greedy' consultants for health service ills is pure spin
I HAVE A problem. How do I stop pigeons eating everything intended for the smaller birds on the feeder? How do I stop our grey squirrel doing the same? The latter was at it again today, showing no sign that he was contemplating hibernation any time soon. It led me to wish that our collection of squirrels in Dáil Éireann had put something by for the hard winters coming. Maybe they did, but that’s not what I meant.
I read where our former Taoiseach, Prof Ahern, reprimanded us for being unduly pessimistic. He felt that we were prone to look upon the glass of our fortunes as being half empty, rather than half full. Most of us gloomy souls think the glass is empty. He had more advice for us. We should go out and dig the garden. Maybe we should plant bluebells.
I wondered why he chose this essentially woodland flower, influenced by Gerard Manley Hopkins I suppose, or possibly Robbie Burns; he’s such a deep man. He’s full of it, depth that is. Maybe he’ll elucidate this for us and he might even give us the name of his colleague who worked night and day to bring him down. I lost sleep over that one, but it is important. There might be a medal somewhere in that.
In my time working in the National Health Service, I became aware of the game called “playing silly buggers”. It was best played by administrators who gained points by placing obstacles on patient treatment pathways. At that time the NHS was without peer in these contests. Well, now they can step back and yield the palm to our own HSE. We lead the world again. Let me give you a little example.
Some weeks ago I wrote about the evil consultants breaking the terms of their shiny new contracts and treating too many private patients. I posed some questions about this simplistic thesis, but I got no answers.
The generals of the HSE, however, had the bone between their teeth and two heroes of that organisation held a briefing for journalists on the Summary Report on Consultant Private Practice Measurement.
The message was clear – the greedy consultants were at it again. Jump on them folks and leave the poor Minister and Prof Drumm alone. Never mind the patients on trolleys, the cancelled operations, the waiting lists, the closed beds, units and hospitals. Ignore the unemployed nurses, physiotherapists and speech therapists. Ignore the current debacles in Mullingar, Beaumont and Limerick. This is the real story, the greedy consultants.
Well, I’m not going there again. I am contemptuous of such spin in the face of sickening reality. However, something else transpired in the course of this briefing. One of the general officers of this huge army, the HSE, is reported to have said, “The contract is the contract is the contract, the hospital consultants and their representative organisations knew what they were signing up for when they signed the contract.” Fair enough, so they did, or should have done.
But here’s the “silly buggers” bit. Has the HSE fulfilled their part of the contract? Have all these miscreants got the facilities and staff to do their jobs and have all the financial stipulations in the document been honoured? You can’t just have the parts you want, general. It is a composite package that stands or falls in its entirety.
Leave aside the doctors for the moment. How does it stand for all the other employees in the health service to realise that their contracts of employment mean nothing and can be altered to their detriment by the well-paid mandarins of the HSE? Contracts can’t be broken by whim or diktat. They can, however, be renegotiated, particularly by people of goodwill on both sides. That hardly applies here.
On the day I am writing this, there are 300 patients lying on trolleys in the nation’s hospitals and there is no sign of meaningful improvement in the service. At the end of the day, we need the doctors, nurses and the carers. They will look after the patients as best they can and as they have always done. They can well do without the bloated overweight incubus that is the HSE.
Another little drama is being played out as I write. The Twelve days of Christmasis just a happy carol. It is not a prescription for the nation's woes. Twelve days' unpaid holidays won't be either. It is a farcical proposal. Meanwhile, Ding Dong Merrily on High– let's pretend the world isn't happening.
- mneligan@irishtimes.com