The Department of Health must prioritise its planning function to ensure a proper and efficient hospital service, according to Dr Colm Costigan, president of the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association.
"We can see that - over the next 30 years - the population will rise by about 20 per cent and that the number of people over 65 years of age is likely to more than double. When the pressure mounts on our health service, will the Department of Health be `surprised' - surprised in the way it is each winter when we have a surge in the cases of flu?" he asked.
Dr Costigan reminded delegates that as consultants they had two jobs. They must provide patient care and act as advocates for their patients, particularly for patients in waiting.
"The standard of medicine in Irish hospitals is on par with the best in the developed world. The problem is one of access to that service. We have a health system far below what the Irish people need and what they can afford."
The health service, he said, was totally out of step with other changes in society. "It is incomprehensible to this new Republic - to those who live and work in Europe's Silicone Valley - that they should spend hours on a trolley in hospital, have elective surgery cancelled at short notice and not have enough time to discuss their medical management with us individually. It makes no sense to have a healthy economy and unhealthy people."
Calling on the Department of Health and Children to generate a rolling 30-year plan for the health services, he said it must:
work with other Government departments and contribute to policy on issues from education to manpower and immigration;
note national and international demographic trends;
keep abreast of scientific development, and
draw together advice from those working at the coalface of medicine.
"We want the Department of Health and Children to conduct a `health audit' on the full implications of Government decisions," he said. In turn, he said the IHCA "resolves to advise, energise and assist the development of national policy".
Mr Finbar Fitzpatrick, IHCA secretary general, referred to the present "anti-consultant agenda". Meanwhile, the IHCA would be meeting the Department of Health next month, he confirmed, to discuss the implications of the Dr Coleman Muldoon case, in which the consultant physician was suspended by the North Eastern Health Board on grounds which did not relate to the subsequent charges made against him. The case was settled recently in the High Court.
