I didnāt say āthereās no issuesā. Not once.
What I said was there were massive complaints over the health service 25 years ago and always has been. And frankly there always will be.
The simple facts is that Irelandās QOLY has improved dramatically in that time. Of course some of it comes down to lifestyle factors, thatās obvious. Your other explanation was privatisation, which is false. Things like the National Cancer Control Programme, Bowel Screening, Breast Check, free GP care expandingā¦
But the narrative is constantly that things are terrible. Thereās the obvious horror stories, the areas of shitness, the work-shy types etc. but the narrative is of third world stuff. Itās not serious but people seem to actually believe it.
Thereās definitely exaggeration, but at the same time things in a lot of meaningful areas are worse. Availability of housing and rentals, traffic in a lot of areas as examples. The rainy day fund is a rod for the governments back really, an imaginary ball of money that seems so close yet doesnāt seem to have brought any noticeable improvement to day to day life. Now if the government are holding funds for a real all hands on deck crisis then thatās probably fair enough. But if that day comes and it emerges that the promised riches were spent on focus groups for people who identify as unicorns or likewise then the guillotines might have to be sharpened.
There were 34 in 2014, thereās 180 today. Over ā¬1bn of bricks and mortar investment (as well as operational), all part of the Slaintecare idea for more localised care. Is that not a contributing factor? Doesnāt figure on her graph.
āSeveral people pointed out that some countries with few hospital beds (e.g. Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands) have strong primary care systems that reduce hospital dependency. This is correct, and these countries made a deliberate policy choice to invest in GPs, community care, and preventive medicine so that fewer people need hospital admission. Ireland has not made this choice. Ireland has both few hospital beds and weak primary care. 75% of GP lists are closed, while hospital bed occupancy is at 95%ā¦ the highest in the OECD. Ireland has the worst of both models.ā
Housing and rentals is obviously a huge strain on the country.
But you can go to two lenses on this. The left claim itās because of vultures, lack of social housing being built, greedy developers and the government ādoing nothingā. The far right blame immigration.
What does 75% of GPs lists are closed mean? A doctor who has been operating in a mature area for years only periodically has new space? Thatās nothing unique to Ireland. This is the Netherlands, is their care shit?
Her graph literally makes zero attempt to represent that investment in primary care over the last decade. Zero.
In terms of beds, I remain extremely skeptical of these numbers. During Covid Ireland was supposedly heading for meltdown over ICU beds- but found itself to be very stretchy when the time came.
Debating every aspect of the health service is silly though. Thereās clearly areas that are massively shit and some have bad experiences. There are also areas that are pretty good and dramatically improved.
Itās kinda apples and oranges because they seem to chop and change politically with their top civil servants on number 10 over there. This guy was fired under the bus along with others to save starmer. Would that happen here? Iād say it would get hung on the politician, and rightly so. And lastly, I donāt think weād appoint close associates of notorious sex offenders as ambassadors to the US in the first place.
Having a pool of ālike onlyā burner accounts which only like far right posts and never actually post is surely the next step in the TFK awkward squad strategy.
