Results 8,961-8,980 of 24,635 for speaker:Mary Harney
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: There is a script but I am not going to deliver it.
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: I will respond to what was said.
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: I am not going to deliver a script. I want to respond to the arguments that have been made, rather than making prepared comments which may be out of context, given what was said. We all acknowledge that, from the taxpayer's perspective, expenditure on health has increased four-fold in ten years. We also know that in 2006, more than 1 million patients were treated in our public hospitals,...
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: For the top 17 procedures, it is a fact.
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: It is the case.
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: That is the data verified by the National Treatment Purchase Fund and it is fact. There is great debate about hospital beds. Since the health strategy was introduced, 1,200 hospital beds, both day and inpatient beds, have been put into the public hospital system. On average, we have invested in 170 new beds per year whereas in the three years preceding 1997, there were 30 new beds per year....
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: I am talking about the average stay in Irish hospitals in 2005. Central to appropriate discharge policy is having a consultant in the hospital whenever one is required, and certainly to have 24-7 cover for the main specialties. The reality is that if this does not happen, daily ward rounds and daily discharges cannot happen. We all know that doctors who are not at consultant level tend to...
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: I beg the Deputy's pardon. Private patientsââ
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: The private beds are ring-fenced for private patients. There may be an occasional exception, but that is the reality.
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: Furthermore, if a private patient, insured patient arrives in a public hospital, no matter what bed that patient is in, the consultant gets a fee for that patient. I have described it previously as being akin to having an airline where the pilots got paid for all the business class passengers, even if they sat in the economy seats. It is ludicrous.
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: These are the factors that mitigate against public patients getting access to services in the public hospital system when they require them. It is not good enough and must end. There are 2,500 private beds out of 13,500 beds in our public hospitals. I want to move 1,000 of those beds from the private system to the public system. I want to convert them into public beds so all patients can...
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: Deputy Twomey suggests there will be clinical issues. Is he suggesting there are clinical issues at St. Vincent's hospital in Dublin, which is a co-location hospital, or at the Mater hospital? I do not believe that is the case.
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: I am simply converting private beds to public beds, a policy I would have thought would win fairly universal support in this country. It is not correct to suggest there is not much support. For example, the medical teams in eight of our biggest hospitals are involved in co-location projects throughout the country.
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: There is huge interest in co-location because people see it as an effective way of achieving additional capacity. It is effective because we will get the beds for no more than 48% of the cost of providing them in the traditional way. That is a fact. They will be provided quicker and cheaper through this model than through any other. I do not believe a private facility within a public...
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: The current contract was finalised in the mid-1990s and I was not around for it.
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: Deputy McManus raised the issue of medical cards. For the Deputy to compare the number of medical cards in terms of a percentage of the population given the situation in 1997 does not stand up. In 1997 there was 11% unemployment and 6% long-term unemployment and take-home pay was 45% lower. There is no comparison.
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: I understand the Labour Party used to have a policy to provide medical cards and universal insurance to the whole population.
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: I am not using a script.
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: I want to answer the points made by the Deputy. Any target set must be for X% of the population, regardless of prosperity or income. These are not appropriate to target setting. With regard to children under five, the Government has often been criticised by the Opposition for universal coverage for the over-70s on the basis that well-off people ââ
- Health Service Reform: Motion (6 Feb 2007)
Mary Harney: Deputy Twomey said to me that well-off people were getting medical cards, but now he suggests that children under five, regardless of the circumstances of their parents, should be covered. What should happen when the child is six, seven or eight?