Labour will deliver unified and fair health system
Issued : Friday 16 April, 2010
Statement by Jan O'Sullivan TD
Minister of State, Department of Environment, Community and Local Government with special responsibility for Housing and Planning
The theme of our conference this week-end is 'Jobs, Reform, Fairness'; these are at the core of Labour's plans for the Health Services.
Reforming the way in which healthcare is delivered to a one-tier universal service, is rooted in our values of fairness and solidarity. When we first advocated the universal insurance model back in 2001, we were a lone voice.
Since then, many other voices have been added to ours, including the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, the Irish Medical Organisation and Irish Congress of Trades Unions and our likely future Government partners, Fine Gael. We welcome all these other advocates for change and are proud to have initiated the national debate in 2001, a debate which has been ignited again this week through the conference organised by the Adelaide Hospital Society at which our Party Leader, Eamon Gilmore, spelled out Labour's intention to make this reform a reality in Government.
I want to restate clearly to this Party and to the nation that Labour in Government will bring in a single system that is unified, fair, delivers Primary Care free to all and prioritises hospital treatment on the basis of medical need, not the money in your pocket.
It has become obvious to many people that we are right. In the past 12 years spending on Health has increased by €10,000,000 but the money has gone into the same old inefficient system run by a huge centralised bureaucracy that pays hospitals a fixed sum no matter how much work they do and that is headed by a nominal Minister for Health, "Hands-Off- Harney" who doesn't want to know about any of the distress that patients experience everyday of the week, particularly in our hopelessly pressurised A & E Departments that she declared a "national emergency" a few years ago when she at least pretended that she was interested.
Harney should go. Her so-called 'Reform Programme' has failed along with her Party and her ideology.
In the US President Obama drove his Health Reform Plan on the basis that there was a 'moral imperative' to make the system fairer. We share his commitment to that 'moral imperative' but added to that is an 'economic imperative'. Ireland cannot afford to keep wasting scarce money on a broken system. As soon as we are elected to Government we will begin implementing our plan; training more GP's; building Primary Care, Maternity and other essential facilities using the Strategic Investment Bank proposed by Labour, and dismantling the dead hand of centralised bureaucracy by reforming the way hospitals are paid to a 'money follows the patient' model. No longer will hospitals be incentivised to keep people on waiting lists who need care and keep people in beds who don't and to give preferential treatment to private patients.
Labour will not renege on our public hospitals and public elder-care homes to favour the profit-driven sector that has so pervasively infiltrated healthcare under Harney's tutelage and protection.
We particularly welcome the support of ICTU, the INMO and the IMO for the universal model of care because we intend to work with the excellent Healthcare professionals we are so lucky to have in Ireland. We intend to keep nurses, doctors, laboratory workers and therapists working at home, not to drive them out. Reform, Fairness and Jobs too are at the heart of Labour's Health plan. We intend that our Healthcare workers will again be able to take pride in the service they deliver.
There are a number of elements to how we will implement our plan which we will publish in the near future:
Primary Care
A ten-point plan to deliver free Primary Care including training more GP's, developing a full network of Primary Care Centres, access to diagnostics and management of chronic illness.
Mental Health
Labour's Mental Health policy will ensure "parity of esteem" for people who have mental, rather than physical, health needs and will address the shameful inadequacies in Child and Adolescent Mental Health services raised in the motion of the Clonakilty branch.
Public Health
Along with other spokespersons, we will be holding a seminar in Dublin in May to develop a policy position on how we can change our lifestyles and behaviour so that children in Ireland can grow up healthy.
Patient Safety
Rebecca O'Malley has agreed to address a public meeting on putting Patient Safety at the heart of Healthcare delivery...details to be announced.
These are some of the elements that will be part of Labour's commitment on Health, all within the framework of a Universal Care Service.
I would like to thank the proposers of the motions debated and the members of the Party for their strong commitment to the values that shape Labour's Health Policy.
We will deliver a fair and efficient Health Service in Government and the sooner that time comes the better of the people of Ireland.
