Results 1,321-1,340 of 24,635 for speaker:Mary Harney

Health Service Investigations (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: The terms of reference for Dr. Hayes included the GP referral issue. The HSE carried out an audit of all hospitals following the emergence of the Tallaght issue. The college of radiology was also asked to make recommendations and the HSE intends to publish that report. There seems to be an assumption that all management and administrative staff are in some HSE office, but the vast bulk of...

Health Service Investigations (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: I do not have the information on the HIQA report to hand, but I will revert to the Deputies when the authority makes its report. The purpose of appointing Dr. Hayes was to see what recommendations he would make, having done a thorough job and including a GP, a patient advocate and so on. Following the Tallaght issue, the HSE made contact with every single hospital in the country and their...

Health Service Investigations (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: We will not see it for the foreseeable future. The judge has recommended that it should not be made public because there are possible criminal proceedings on the matter.

Hospital Waiting Lists (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: I propose to take Questions Nos. 15 and 17 together. Since its establishment in 2002, the National Treatment Purchase Fund has provided over 200,000 public patients with inpatient treatment, diagnostic procedures and outpatient appointments. The median waiting time for medical and surgical patients is now 2.6 months. This is a very significant reduction from an average of between two and...

Hospital Waiting Lists (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: We never measured the lists in that manner, so we must compare like with like. When the NTPF was established a few years ago, there were over 30,000 people waiting over three months and now that list is below 20,000. Clinical leads have recently been appointed by Dr. White to devise appropriate clinical pathways for patients, particularly in respect of access to appropriate outpatient...

Hospital Waiting Lists (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: For next year, we are examining the strong possibility of procuring, for example, orthopaedics from the hospitals because there is a substantial variation between the cost of procedures from one hospital to another.

Hospital Waiting Lists (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: Yes. In other words, we will ring-fence the money for orthopaedics, because it is very measurable, and procure that service based on value for money. Clearly, there is a substantial variation throughout the country in the context of what one can receive for a specific amount of money. That is evident from the case mix. The money taxpayers make available must be used as productively as...

Hospital Waiting Lists (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: All hospitals, including Our Lady's Hospital, Navan, and all regions of the HSE must live within their budgets. No additional money can be made available. There is much scope within hospitals for greater efficiency. University College Hospital, Galway is in the news currently. It has an absentee rate of 7%.

Hospital Waiting Lists (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: I am telling Deputies the measures hospitals must take and we are working to ensure they take them. The Croke Park agreement has a crucial role to play in this regard. University College Hospital, Galway loses 25,500 hours per month through absenteeism. It is being asked to reduce it by 28,000 hours per month. All the problem does not rest with the HSE nationally or with the Department....

Hospital Waiting Lists (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: Will Deputy Ó Caoláin please give me the details? When I look for the details, I never get them.

Hospital Staff (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: One of the main recommendations of the National Task Force on Medical Staffing in 2003 was to increase the number of consultants and to implement a corresponding decrease in the number of NCHD posts in order to create a consultant-provided service. At the time of publication the consultant to NCHD ratio was 1:2.27. The task force concluded that a team-based consultant-provided service was...

Hospital Staff (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: The process of recruiting consultants continues unaffected by the moratorium. The process includes suppressing two non-consultant posts for one consultant post and is working well, as is evident from the ratios. The first report on this matter was the 1994 Tierney report which was to get us there ten years later. We have made good progress since 2003. The HSE, the Medical Council and...

Hospital Staff (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: Services to patients will not be curtailed and are constantly being reconfigured. There will be a question later on Navan Hospital and I shall deal with the matter then in line with recommendations on patient safety and so on. Regarding interns, the issue is to have a comparative figure that compares like for like, comparing our position when the manpower study reported with where we are...

Hospitals Building Programme (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: The renewed programme for Government reaffirms the Government's commitment to the hospital co-location programme. Preferred bidders have been selected for six co-location projects, including those at Beaumont, Cork University, Limerick Regional and St. James's hospitals. The Beacon Medical Group was awarded the Beaumont, Cork and Limerick projects. Synchrony Healthcare was successful in...

Hospitals Building Programme (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: That may be correct in regard to stand-alone private facilities but the reality is that almost 50% of elective admissions, including those in the Deputy's local hospital, are for private patients. The impetus behind this plan came from a letter from six consultants in the Deputy's hospital who were the first people to write to me on this idea.

Hospitals Building Programme (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: Hold on. They are highly respected and I believe the Deputy, too, would respect them. The reason they proposed this was to free up the private beds which are designated in our public hospitals for public patients. That remains the plan. The sad reality is that we do not have additional resources to invest in our public hospital programme, regardless of whether I or anyone else is in...

Hospitals Building Programme (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: -----of providing additional capacity because too many public beds are consumed by private patients who could be dealt with in private sector facilities. These facilities must be made available to all patients of the hospital and profit may arise - in the case of the hospital in Limerick about 25%. There can be no breach of the tender or of the project agreement entered into with any of the...

Hospitals Building Programme (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: In Waterford Regional Hospital there are 80 private beds paid for by taxpayers which are accessible only to private patients. I do not have the figure for Limerick but it is similar. A large proportion of private beds in our public hospitals are paid for by taxpayers, as are the staff concerned, but these are available to one group of patients only. I do not find that acceptable. Not all...

Hospitals Building Programme (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: Those tax breaks, too, will only be available to certain people. If the tax system can deliver in health or any other area a benefit for our citizens that is greater than the benefit which can be achieved otherwise, we must have an open mind about it.

Hospital Services (5 Oct 2010)

Mary Harney: In its role as patient advocate for high quality, safe, surgical care and practice, the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland supported the decision of the HSE's director of quality and clinical control, Dr. White, to cease emergency acute surgical services at Our Lady's Hospital in Navan with effect from 1 September. Earlier this year, the HSE north east identified two general surgery cases...