Irish health outcomes are among worst in the West

Irish health outcomes are among the worst in the western world, despite improvements in recent years, according to an OECD report.

Ireland ranks in the bottom third internationally in many of the measures of health performance contained in Health at a Glance 2015.

We have the worst rates of asthma and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) of 32 countries surveyed, and rank 24th for rates of stroke deaths.

Ireland ranks just 20th for cervical and breast cancer survival, and 19th for colorectal cancer survival.

The incidence of prostate cancer in Ireland is the fourth highest in the OECD. Ireland is sixth for the incidence of all cancers and seventh for breast cancer.

Ireland also features in the bottom third of countries for the number of doctors and hospital beds; adult obesity; alcohol consumption; and female life expectancy at age 65.

Alcohol consumption

We rank in the top third for the number of nurses employed in the health service and for child obesity rates. And while alcohol consumption remains high, it has fallen sharply since 2000, when Ireland had the highest consumption in the OECD.

We produce the highest number of medical graduates but also rank fourth for the number of foreign-trained doctors.

Irish health spending is close to the OECD average, at 8.1 per cent of gross domestic product, but it fell at a faster rate between 2009 and 2013 than in any other country, apart from Greece and Luxembourg.

Health attracts 13 per cent of Irish government spending, far less than in the US (20 per cent) or Germany (19 per cent).

Despite the perception that the medical workforce is ageing, the OECD says we have the third lowest proportion of doctors aged over 55 years, at 21 per cent, behind the UK and Korea.

Ageing population

Overall, the report finds too many lives are lost in OECD countries because healthcare quality is improving too slowly to cope with ageing populations and the growing number of people with one or more chronic diseases.

Health spending continues to grow slowly in many OECD countries in line with GDP growth, although it fell in 2013 for a third consecutive year in Italy and Portugal and a fourth in Greece.

The report says pharmaceutical spending reached about $800 billion across OECD countries in 2013, or 20 per cent of total health spending.

New specialty drugs are expected to account for more than half of pharmaceutical spending growth within the next five years. While some of these high-price medicines bring great benefits to patients, others provide only marginal health improvement and are not cost-effective.