Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I welcome the opportunity to discuss health matters for a second week. Notwithstanding a number of comments, it is important to put matters in context. Gross expenditure should be discussed despite the belief of some to the contrary. Many years ago, we underspent on health relative to other countries, but we spend approximately 8.9% of GNP currently. This is on a par with the OECD, comprising the world's 30 richest countries. Some 11% of our population is over 65 years of age whereas the relevant figure for OECD countries is 17%. On a purchasing power parity basis and factoring in inflation, the cost of living and so on, we spend $2,596 per capita compared to an OECD average of $2,500. These facts are not unimportant. Some 80% of Ireland's overall health spending comes from the public purse while the remainder is private funding. Across the OECD, the ratio is approximately 75:25. Our public spending increased from 78% three years ago.

Much is said about privatised medicine. The challenge for the public health care system is to supply services to patients in need. When we discuss waiting lists, we never refer to how 100,000 might be waiting for buses on any given day because the length of time people wait for treatment is the issue, not how many are waiting. The waiting period in respect of 17 of the top 20 procedures has decreased from two to five years to two to five months. Some 17,000 of those in question have been on the list for fewer than three months. We will never reach a stage where the hospital or service provider is waiting for people to appear, as it will be the other way around. In every health care system, there will always be a list of appointments for people seeking treatment. It is an issue of waiting periods, not of being on waiting lists.

Last Friday, Lansdowne Marketing, which is acknowledged as a reputable company in this field, and the public health institute at UCD published the findings of the independent research they carried out on those who had accessed the system rather than the wider population, as the latter gets its impression from the media or what is reported from the House. If we want to listen to those who have used the service, I will cite a number of statistics. Some 76% of inpatients were seen within a month, 11% were seen within three months, 4% were seen within six months and 4% waited longer than six months. This is a significant improvement on the situation a decade ago. In the past year, some 64% of our citizens saw their general practitioners on the day they sought the service, which is not the case in many countries. I could continue with more data. Those who use our hospital, community and GP services report high levels of satisfaction.

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