Madam, – Michael Cullen’s (and indeed Mary Harney’s) argument that the Government can’t meet the need for public hospital beds without co-located private hospitals is deeply flawed. In many other European countries, the need for hospital beds increases as populations grow and age too, and they don’t automatically go for “co-location” or private partnerships to create extra beds.
What is wrong with the Government generating more hospital beds without private funding? Our Government says it can’t afford to build/upgrade hospitals out of public funds, and that private partners will do the job more speedily (though why the latter should be also needs questioning).
So why doesn’t the Government increase the health levy element of income tax so that our taxes pay for decent hospitals, with enough beds in them for everyone, built and run by the Government, not in partnership with purely profit-oriented businesses?
Mr Cullen failed to mention that one of the reasons for the shortage of hospital beds in the first place is that many of the beds that were cut under the Haughey government in the 1980s were never replaced. If cutting hospital beds in the 1980s seemed daft – maybe the logic was that all the sick would emigrate too – it seems even dafter to blame the lack of beds on private patients occupying public beds, as Michael Cullen does.
In my earning lifetime income tax rates have never been so low as in the FF/PD era, and are lower than in many other European countries. I, for one, would rather pay more tax and not have so much of our public infrastructure “outsourced” to private concerns. They, after all, are only in it for the money.
The Government has to get value for money, but the value is not just economic value, it’s the welfare of the citizens of the State, who should not be divided into those who can afford healthcare and those who can’t.
I agree wholeheartedly with Fintan O’Toole and David Begg that Ireland should move towards universal health insurance. There are models of this that allow people to pay extra for “perks” such as a private or semi-private room in a hospital, but the bottom line is that EVERYONE gets the same medical and nursing care, with no discrimination in terms of access to GPs, consultants or hospitals. It is a disgrace that we already have a two-tier system of healthcare provision.
Let’s not make it worse by having hospitals for the “haves” located beside hospitals for the “have-nots”. – Yours, etc,
RACHEL McNICHOLL,
Dublin 4.