BUDGET:RESPONSIBILITY FOR how the €14 billion set aside for the day to day running of our health service is spent will continue to rest with the chief executive officer of the Health Service Executive (HSE) Cathal Magee for the foreseeable future, it was confirmed yesterday.
Minister for Health James Reilly said that despite his decision to abolish the HSE board earlier this week and to become himself more accountable to the Dáil for how health services are run, Mr Magee will remain the “accounting officer” for how the billions pumped into health services are spent. Dr Reilly said he doubted this situation will change “in any immediate time frame”.
He was speaking after addressing the annual meeting of the Irish Medical Organisation in Killarney, where he received a warm welcome as a former president of the organisation.
Dr Reilly also said the new interim board to be put in place following his decision to ask HSE board members to resign will “stay in place and continue to report directly to myself and the two ministers of State” after legislation is enacted later this year to abolish the HSE board.
The interim board will be made up of senior officials in the Department of Health and the HSE and “will lead to a much quicker, shorter chain of communication and authority,” he said.
Earlier, the chief executive of the IMO, George McNeice, questioned Dr Reilly’s plans to introduce a system of universal health insurance cover and said the Government needed to be more open about the complexity involved in this move and the financial implications of it for individuals.
He also questioned whether the time frame for introducing free cover for all was realistic – the Government plans to introduce free GP care for all in its first term and universal hospital cover in a second term of office. “I don’t believe that they are,” Mr McNeice said.
He added that already many GP practices were woefully overstretched and struggling to make ends meet yet the new Government believed it could reduce their fees further.
He said morale in the medical profession was now at “rock bottom” and there was a growing manpower crisis, with some doctors leaving to work in countries offering very appealing opportunities.
Dr Reilly argued it was realistic to deliver free GP care for all and that it was affordable. He said it was a question of people working smarter rather than harder, and working differently, with nurses and pharmacists able to take over a lot of the work currently performed by family doctors.
He also committed to working to amend the Competition Act which prevents the IMO negotiating with the Government on a new GP contract for its members, something required if the Government’s reforms are to be implemented. He said he believed it would be far better to deal with a single entity in negotiations rather than individuals which “becomes a mess”.