Department of Health trying to ‘capture’ healthcare reforms

The Department of Health has been accused of trying to “capture” and control any attempt by Government to implement radical proposals drawn up by an all-party committee on the future of Irish healthcare.

Social Democrats TD Róisín Shortall claimed the department was attempting to “slow down this whole process and put obstacles in its way” and “capture any kind of change proposed”.

Ms Shortall, chair of the committee which drew up the Sláintecare report outlining a 10-year plan for healthcare, said the Government “must not let departmental interests slow this down and block progress”.

The Government agreed to establish an office to oversee the implementation of the report’s recommendations, but Ms Shortall said the committee wanted an independent office in the Department of the Taoiseach.

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During the Dáil debate on the report, Minister of State Jim Daly said the Government "has already given its approval to move ahead with the establishment of a Sláintecare programme office in the Department of Health". He said recruitment would start shortly.

Repeating

Ms Shortall said the Taoiseach had told her in August that he would start recruitment shortly. They were told the same thing in September and October and the Minister of State was repeating it again.

“I have to question the Government’s sincerity and commitment to this if we have now wasted what is almost six months” since the publication of the report.

Warning that the Government should “not let vested interests get in the way”, she said the Irish Hospital Consultants’ Association criticised the report but failed to address the fundamental point about achieving equity “if the two-tier system continues”.

The Dublin North-West TD said that considerable pressure had been put on committee members to block the recommendation of separate public and private systems. Lobbyists succeeded, however, in having a requirement for an assessment of the impact on public patients included in the report, she said.

Core recommendation

It was strange that this was the first issue the Government moved on, because “that is a core recommendation of Sláintecare and is fundamental to achieving the universal system”.

She added: “I sincerely hope the Government will not use this process as an excuse to abandon this key recommendation.”

She said “various interests are doing okay from our health system, it is good for their business. But the Government has a duty to serve the concerns of patients, not those of vested interests.”