Thursday 4th January 2018.   The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has said that significant financial investment in hospital beds, General Practice and recruitment and retention of doctors, must be at the heart of the Governments’ response to the health crisis and such investment must happen across the board simultaneously.

The IMO said that the commitment of the Minister for Health was worthless without a simultaneous commitment from the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance to finding financial resources.  The prospect of another report and ensuing recommendations will do little to assist patients or stop what is now an exodus of doctors leaving the Irish health services. 

The IMO has long called for

a)      Additional Beds

b)      Investment in General Practice

c)       Measures to address recruitment and retention of doctors

IMO President, Dr Ann Hogan warned against further reports; “Whilst reports are useful, we have all the reports we need, what we now need is a serious commitment to invest in a planned way.  We agree all investment should be evidence based but the evidence has long been there to clearly demonstrate that

a)      There are not enough acute or nursing home beds to cope with our demographics and in particular deal with the complex medical problems of a growing elderly population.

b)      Investment in GP Led Primary Care and in particular the management of Chronic Disease in the community which will alleviate the pressures on the acute hospital system in terms of waiting lists and acute presentations as well as providing more effective care for the patient and better value for the taxpayer.

c)       A consultant delivered hospital service is key to delivering appropriate and timely patient care but the Irish health services are not an employer of choice and until such a time as we can compete internationally and offer rewarding careers to our doctors we will continue to lose them to other health services.

This is not a trolley crisis – this is a system in meltdown.  No single measure will address the problem in any significant way.  We have to tackle the three core issues at the same time to make any progress”

Time for analysing the problem is over what we need is an increasing and sustained funding programme.