Madam, – The Health Information and Quality Authority’s report on the deficiencies at Ennis General Hospital appear at first sight to be a damning indictment of the HSE and current Government health policy.
The lack of investment in the unit, so that it could meet the needs of the people living within its catchment area, is the obvious core problem.
In any other jurisdiction such a report might well be expected to recommend that disciplinary action, or indeed even negligence charges, might be laid at the door of the service provider or even the sitting minister for health. But not in Ireland, the land of smoke and mirrors politics. Astonishingly, our Minister received the report with praise.
Could it possibly be that the HIQA is a quango whose real remit is also hidden behind the same smoke? Rather than bumping up the quality of services, is it preoccupied with the same objective as the Minister’s own policy, the delivery of a centralised and privatised health care system in which the patient is regarded as a customer? A policy of pay or be damned? – Yours, etc,