Sir, - Your Editorial of October 2nd highlights the deterioration in our health services over the past two decades. While I agree with much of what you say, I must take issue with your claim that "not even the most dedicated of administrators had the training to be able to challenge the power of the hospital consultants".
I fail to see how the so-called power of hospital consultants should determine Government policy. Your own Editorial identifies the major problem: healthcare is under-funded. However, it is not absolutely correct to state that "staff numbers have declined below critical levels . . ." The ratio of administrators to doctors within our system has continued to grow over a 20-year period. We will shortly have two administrators for each doctor. If anything, consultants have been excluded from policy and decision-making. They carry of the responsibility for patient care and are sued by name in court when patients are dissatisfied. It is they, with junior doctors and nurses, who have to tell patients that their appointments have been cancelled or that they will be on a waiting-list for up to two years. In short, they carry all of the medical responsibility, with none of the administrative or policy-making authority.
Certainly, let health be an issue in the next election, just as it has been in every election since 1973. Let the electorate pass judgment on the political parties and their health policies when the time comes. The greatest single problem with our hospital services is one of access. The standard of medicine is on a par with the best in the developed world. It is for the politicians to provide the planning and the funding to give every citizen access to the health services they require within a medically acceptable time-frame. Once the patient is admitted, the consultants will look after him or her well. - Yours, etc.,
Finbarr Fitzpatrick, Secretary-General, Irish Hospital Consultants Association, Dundrum Office Park, Dublin 14.