Drumm hopes for end to political rows on health

Health debate: HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm has expressed the hope that health issues will cease to be the source of political rows.

"I hope that the health services will become, less and less, a political football. I do not think that the health services have benefited hugely from being used as a political weapon. I hope rather that the establishment of the HSE will, in fact, lead to a situation whereby everybody will begin to focus on the quality of patient care as being the one thing across all divides which everybody aspires to."

Prof Drumm said the creation of the HSE had clearly been a huge challenge to the political system and he had kept referring to it as a brave decision. "It is a message to the health services in many other developed countries." They had not yet reached the point where they could say that the HSE was wonderful, "but I am certainly not going to begin to operate on the basis that the old system was absolutely fabulous now that we actually look back on it, because I do not think that could be justified. I think that the potential for change that is now there was certainly unattainable under the old system."

With a central authority there was now a huge potential to provide a national approach to deal with the problems which, historically, were dealt with on a piecemeal basis, leading to wonderful services in one part of the country, but terrible services in another, as well as cross-competition.

There was now a great potential for the taxpayer, who was the ultimate funder of the system, to demand not only consistency in the provision of services but also accountability.

"What I am hoping to do is to establish the credibility of the HSE with the political system to the degree of saying that we are accepting our responsibilities in terms of the money given to us. And by doing that, we will justify the necessary increase in ongoing expenditure on the basis that we will be able to show that we will use it responsibly."

Change was essential in the health services, Prof Drumm said.

A delegate who works as a public health nurse claimed there were problems in all areas of the health services. She suggested that GPs "should get off their backsides", adding that it was costing a fortune to train them. "Make them do the work. Give them the hours."

Prof Drumm said GP services had become so undervalued by the population, and so underinvested in, that those involved lost faith in the system. "They are a remarkable resource and I believe will connect into the primary care system."

Minister of State for Health Tim O'Malley said there was need for a change in the education of doctors. "You may have excellent doctors, but if they do not have the communications skills or the skills in dealing with people, their diagnostic ability is irrelevant."

Colm O'Gorman, founder and director of One in Four, said that the rights of children were rarely considered in a way that reflected the nature of childhood. "Children are uniquely vulnerable. They are that rare section of society who do not possess a cognitive sense of their own individual rights and entitlements."