Sir, – Minister for Health James Reilly’s assertion that the deal he has struck with hospital consultants will result in savings of €200 million would make the likes of Lewis Carroll blush.
The notion that by having consultants “on-site” (the presumed message being that they are on the golf course), will result in more efficient use of resources and faster discharges is astonishingly naive. The truth is that our acute hospital beds are already gridlocked with patients who have already been discharged by their consultants, but have nowhere to go due to a lack of investment in step-down facilities over the past decades. Bringing consultants around by the ear to discharge them for a second time sounds like the minister wants the consultants to pull a rabbit out of the hat.
In addition, increasing “productivity”, whatever that means, will actually result in increased costs, not a reduction in them. The reality is that if a physician sees more patients, he orders more investigations, and if a surgeon sees more patients, he operates more often. This all costs money.
That is the nature of medicine.
Making consultants scapegoats for the woes of the health service might be politically acceptable, and certainly appeases the baying mob that passes for media in this country. But the continued emasculation of consultants and denigration of the excellent work they do will result in mass exodus from the health service, and real difficulty in replacing them. This is in nobody’s interest.
Shame on the Minister. – Yours, etc,