Sir, – Prof Sean Barrett (August 14th) cites a fall in acute hospital bed day usage between 1986 and 2016 of 117,000 bed days. He fails to acknowledge that this was in the context of a 40 per cent increase in population, but a 38 per cent fall in acute bed numbers from 16,878 to 10, 473. During that same period, the average length of stay for inpatients has been driven down from 7.4 to 5.6 days, when the OECD average is 8.1 days. Our day case activity has rocketed from 50,000 to over 916,000 per annum, which is probably the safety valve that has prevented total collapse of the system.
I’m not sure where he got 105,886 staff employed, when the OECD Health Policy overview from February 2016 shows only 57,200 staff in hospital employment, with 30,400 being physicians and nurses.
What is also opaque is just what proportion of the public health sector spend is classed as social care by other countries.
I may not be an economist, but I know when staff are being ground into the ground, dealing with more patients, with fewer resources, and less pay. Caveat emptor, or should that be caveat vendor? – Yours, etc,
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PATRICK K PLUNKETT,
Clinical Professor
of Emergency Medicine,
Trinity College Dublin,
Consultant
in Emergency Medicine,
St James’s Hospital,
Dublin 8.
Sir, – I await with interest the response of the various stakeholders in the health service – the HSE, the INMO, trade unions and medical organisations – to the startling figures in Sean Barrett’s letter of August 14th. It seems we pay over the odds for a below-par health service delivered with ever-declining efficiency.
The Irish taxpayer deserves an explanation before any further money is wasted on this project. – Yours, etc,
PA KERR,
Rathnew, Co Wicklow.