Lack of out of hours emergency care service responsible for Dunne deaths?
In the wake of the death of an entire family, the HSE has been forced to answer for itself. The question on everybodies mind is ‘Would it have happened if an out-of-hours emergency care service existed?’
Pubic opinion STILL supports nurses
A survey published today said that nearly two thirds of Irish people support the nurses demand for higher pay and shorter working hours.
Irish medical prices third most expensive in EU
Irish pharmaceutical prices are the third highest in the EU and are 19% above the average.
Catch-up: Harney to reform private Health market. VHI very angry.
Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has promised to lower risk equalisation paid to VHI by other insurance providers in a bid to ‘level the playing field’.
Lack of out-of-hours emergency care service responsible for Dunne deaths?
In the wake of the death of an entire family, the HSE has been forced to answer for itself. The question on everybodies mind is ‘Would it have happened if an out-of-hours emergency care service existed?’.
Brief synopsis of what happened: Ciara and Adrian Dunne visited a funeral parler last week to discuss what they wanted done with their bodies and those of their daughters ’should they be killed in a car accident’. The woman they were dealing with was worried by their specification of what was to be done with the little girls’ bodies and alerted the authorities who called the HSE. Unfortunately it was out-of-hours and so, nothing was done. A few days later the family showed up dead in their home. It is suspected that one or both of the parents killed their children and then themselves.
The gardai say that they were left with very few options. The only power they have in these situations is to immediately take the children into care. After deliberating about it, they thought this too harsh an action and decided to wait for the emergency care services to get back to work.
Unfortunately the Dunne family did not wait this long.
The argument is that, were there an out-of-hours service, it would have been of little use because a care worker had visited the family a few days before for a routine check-up on the girls and had noticed nothing wrong.
The HSE say another visit would have had the same effect and that they would have been unlikely to take the children away without solid evidence of abuse.
The biggest hole I can see, and also what the deceaseds families keep pointing out is that there was no effort made to contact either family.
In an incident like this, I think that the best kind of intervention would be from loved ones and that, in this case, that this may have made a difference.
Although I do agree that it is essential that some kind of out-of-hours service is provided, I don’t think that it would have helped in this case.
Pubic opinion STILL supports nurses
A survey published today said that nearly two thirds of Irish people support the nurses demand for higher pay and shorter working hours.
The survey, which was published by The Irish Times and TNS mrbi found that 58% of those polled were also in favour of the nurses using industrial action to acheive an end to their dispute.
Of the 65% that support the dispute, most were in the 24-34 age group. Also, a higer percentage of men than women were understanding of the nurses’ hardships.
People of all political views are standing behind the nurses although the Political Democrats are the party whose following has the smallest percentage in favour of the dispute at 41% compared to 71% of Labour’s supporters.
These figures come in the wake of a statement made by the HSE that nurses’ action is putting patients in danger.
Irish medical prices third most expensive in EU
Irish pharmaceutical prices are the third highest in the EU and are 19% above the average.
Only Germany and Denmark rank above the Republic in terms of price.
However, outside of the EU, prices are a lot higher- the Swiss pay 87% more than the Irish for example.
A survey carried out across the EU took 181 drugs into account and totted up the price paid both by citizens and the government for pharmaceuticals. For this reason, the figure reflects how much is charged by pharmaceuticals rather than how much the average person pays for them.
Catch-up: Harney to reform private Health market. VHI very angry.
Minister for Health, Mary Harney has promised to lower risk equalisation paid to VHI by other insurance providers in a bid to ‘level the playing field’.
Risk equalisation is a sum of money paid to VHI as compensation for the fact that it has an older client base more likely to require medical attention.
The Barrington report which was published last week said that these payments are making it impossible for other companies to compete with the semi-state body.
As a result, the Minister has decided to lower the risk equalisation by twenty per cent.
Surprisingly enough, VHI were not too happy with her decision. They say that they will now have to raise their prices to cover the money they will lose. They also claim that this move will mean that other companies get higher profits without having to improve their service or increase their efficiency, a move which will have negative effects on the service they provide.
