Incredibly strong words from Professor Michael O’Keeffe.
A Consultant Ophthalmologist at the Mater and Temple Street in Dublin, Professor Michael O’Keeffe says that Minister for Health Simon Harris’s promises to shake up the health service have been heard all before.
Harris has five-point plan to tackle waiting lists in hospitals, but O’Keeffe believes that vested interest groups have the advantage over the government and until they can be tackled, nothing will change.
O’Keeffe said that he can see double the patients in half the time, and with half the staff, in a private hospital compared to what he can achieve in a public hospital.
He went on to call Ireland’s public hospitals ‘ineffective and inefficient.’
He told RTÉ: “You can’t solve this problem without taking on a lot of people and shaking up the hospital system. And it’s not a matter of throwing more and more resources.
“The present resources are there but they are not being utilised. Public hospitals have become so inefficient and ineffective that it is embarrassing to work in them.”
Earlier, Harris had said that significant investment in waiting list initiatives must be made, and that a National Treatment Purchase Fund will be reactivated in the next budget with funds of €15m.
He also promised €50m for those waiting list initiatives in October’s budget.
RTÉ reports that, according to the latest hospital waiting list figures from the National Treatment Purchase Fund, 528,144 patients were waiting for treatment or checks, at the end of July.
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