Inequality report: Death rates among poor people are more than three times higher than among the richest, according to a report to be published today.
Inequalities in healthcare mean that poorer people are dying younger and in greater numbers than those in higher socio-economic groups.
"Health in Ireland - an unequal state" found that death rates from all causes are over three times greater in the lowest occupational class compared with the highest. It is the first report from the newly formed Public Health Alliance of Ireland (PHAI).
The report notes "in no other area is the impact of inequality on society as devastating as it is on our health".
Male suicide occurs at a much higher rate in lower socio-economic groups, and unemployed women are more than twice as likely to give birth to low birth weight children. Death from lung cancer is four times greater for people in the lowest occupational class while death from stroke is three times greater.
The report found that sudden infant death in the travelling community is 12 times higher than that found in the general population. Travellers live between 10 and 12 years less than the rest of the population.
The report also found that 40 per cent of people identified financial problems as the greatest single factor preventing them from improving their health. And in a case study illustrating the financial impact of an episode of illness on the 70 per cent of the population without a medical card, the report notes: "for a single person living alone who earns just above the €135 weekly ceiling for a medical card, one €40 fee for a GP visit can consume 28.5 per cent of weekly income". When €20 for antibiotics is added, the effect of an illness is to consume 43 per cent of that person's weekly income.
Sara Burke, one of the report's authors and a council member of the PHAI, told The Irish Times last night the report brought together an extensive range of health inequalities. "We are doing this to increase public awareness of these inequalities, which are shocking, unjust and unnecessary and can be reduced. \ 4,500 fewer people would die on the island of Ireland if our death rates decreased to match those of Europe," she said.
Institute of Public Health director Dr Jane Wilde said: "Our focus has been on addressing our appalling inequalities in health and we feel that this report will be a real stimulus for change."
According to Rosaleen Mc Donagh of Pavee Point, the Travellers' support group, "the benefit of this report for my community is it proves the impact that accommodation, education, employment and poverty has on the health status of marginalised populations and it outlines the urgent need for health to become the responsibility of the Government and not just the Department of Health".
Solutions, the report suggests, include an end to Government subsidies to private care; the appointment of publicly salaried hospital consultants who work exclusively for public hospitals; and the creation of a primary care service that is free at the point of delivery and funded by taxes or universal health insurance.
The PHAI is an alliance of non-governmental organisations, statutory bodies and community groups.