FG wants health spending analysed

Fine Gael has called for a "forensic examination" of health service spending and has claimed that the Government is only paying "lip service" to preventative healthcare.

At a Fine Gael health seminar in Dublin yesterday, the party's health spokeswoman, Ms Olivia Mitchell, said difficult questions had to be asked about our health system.

More than €10 billion has been spent every year on an unsatisfactory system, she said. Standing still would require 10 per cent more spending every year on health.

Ms Mitchell said health workers, patients, politicians and taxpayers should ask if the health service was capable of surviving in its current format.

"Crucially, we must ask if it is desirable, even if we could afford it, to do the things the way we do now."

Ms Mitchell said unwelcome scenarios were "barrelling towards us" and "abolishing a few health boards and a perfunctory genuflection in the direction of Hanly is not going to solve our problems.

"We pay lip service to preventative healthcare and the importance of keeping people healthy rather than merely trying to cure them when they become sick," Ms Mitchell said.

"But if we were really serious about this we would tackle childhood obesity through education and support and the Government would not terminate the primary school sports grant."

The Fine Gael health spokeswoman called for a shift in public health policy towards lifestyle issues such as health, nutrition, diet and exercise.

"We need urgently to explore how we can refocus and retarget our resources so as to keep people healthy as long as possible through healthier lifestyles," she said.

Ms Mitchell said "a major mindset change" was required for everyone.

"And for policy makers the big challenge is to find a way in which we can stop exclusively spending on health and to find a way in which we can start investing in it."