Full text of the speech by Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly TD at the party ardfheis.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The father of medicine, Hippocrates, who lived four hundred years BC, laid down an oath that every doctor takes, to this day. It specifies the pivotal responsibility every doctor has, in four words.
“First, do no harm.” It sounds obvious, doesn’t it? That’s because it is obvious. And important.
When you deal with a patient, you hold their health in your hands. You may even hold their life in your hands.
The Health Service in this country holds the lives of all of our people in its hands.
But – under Minister Mary Harney – it’s prepared to break that most fundamental rule: “First, do no harm.”
This Government, faced with the financial disaster they did so much to create, immediately set out to harm people particularly the young and the old.
They tried to take the medical card away from the older people they’d given it to.
They withdrew the cervical cancer vaccine from young girls they’d promised it to.
They broke their promise to young people suffering from Cystic Fibrosis
The older people – our elders - told them, on that historic day in the church in Westland Row, precisely what they could do with their plans to steal back the medical card – and rightly so.
Withdrawing the cervical cancer vaccine is an even more serious breach of the public trust.
Because we know it saves lives. Our Health Information Quality Authority told us it would save 52 lives every year. Failure to deliver that vaccine will cause deaths.
But that’s not the only area where this Government breaks the Hippocratic oath.
We have the highest incidence of Cystic Fibrosis in this country, in the world. This Government promised to give Cystic Fybrosis sufferers a new, safer location for treatment.
Now, they’re saying “Forget that promise. We take it back.” That’s a decision to do harm. No more. No less.
Teenagers fighting for breath. That’s what we’re talking about. Teenagers fighting for life. That’s not important? Their lives, their quality of life, their length of life can be dismissed in the interests of saving money.
By a Government that has thrown money away with reckless abandon. Let me give you just one example.
Take 10 Health Boards and various other organisations and merge them into one.
Fail to find a CEO for 2 long years.
Promise all managers nobody’ll have to move their job or take redundancy.
Add a few extra layers of middle managers while you’re at it.
Create a bureaucratic monster where thousands of people, many of them excellent people, don’t know what they’re responsible for or who they report to.
Hand over total control of a fifteen thousand million budget.
Wash your hands of the whole deal.
Hey, presto: you’ve got the HSE.
From the start the Government allowed the HSE to become a bloated bureaucracy that eats money. In economic hard times instead of cutting waste this Government cancels the vaccine against cancer and removes hope for Cystic Fibrosis sufferers. These people, our children, our citizens don’t matter. They are expendable.
Shame on them. Shame on them.
Those two immoral, heartless, cold decisions would be enough for us to say “Go. Go. In God’s name, go!”
They must go. Because Fine Gael, with its commitment to rebuilding a nation so it’s compassionate, fair, competitive and sustainable, is ready to hold the health of the nation in our hands.
To put the patient first. Our first priority – our constant priority – is the patient. We want to bring medicine to the patient. We want to bring the service to the patient.
We’ll do that through Primary Care centres where groups of GPs will operate with nurses in modern buildings that can house X ray, ultrasound and endoscopy. Buildings with rooms for visiting consultants.
Think about it.
Why should 35 people from Balbriggan have to travel into the city when one person from the city can travel to them?
Why should 40 people from Clonakilty travel to Cork University Hospital when one consultant could travel the other way?
The saving in carbon footprint alone would be significant, but the benefits for patients would be immeasurable. If you’re the patient, you’ll be treated by a doctor you know. Who knows you.
That doctor will be able to have tests done right there – instead of having to send you into a hospital for them, with all the delays that would imply.
You’ll get your diagnosis quicker.
Treatment will start immediately.
Our primary care policy will be the first step in turning an inefficient, uncaring system into an efficient, compassionate service to patients. In parallel, we’ll do away with waiting lists.
No, it’s not an aspiration. It’s a guarantee, based on our research into the best approaches, worldwide.
In eliminating waiting lists, we’ll draw on the model used in the North of Ireland where they succeeded in doing away with a waiting list of fifty seven thousand people in just 18 months. If they can do it, we can do it!
Having cleared waiting lists, we’ll put in place a hospital system where the money follows the patient.
No longer will hospitals receive a budget for a year, so that when the money runs out, operations cease, regardless of how inefficiently the money’s been used.
Instead, each hospital will get a maintenance budget. After that, they’ll be paid per patient, per procedure, per complexity of procedure – in much the same manner as the Mater Private Hospital or the Blackrock Clinic – but for everyone.
The patient, the moment they cross the threshold of a hospital will be seen as a resource to be cherished. Not left languishing on a trolley for four days.
Our new healthcare service will be fair. Everybody will be equal.
I will write an end to a system where the late, very brave Susie Long waited for 7 months on a public list for a colonoscopy but others could have it in weeks privately.
A system that lets a 35 year old man with diabetes go blind in one eye waiting for an outpatients appointment that is continually cancelled. That allows a 34 year old Mother of 2 with a Brain Tumour diagnosed in January 2009 to wait for life saving surgery – she could walk when she was diagnosed but now she is confined to her house, waiting on that phone call for 10 long weeks. And there are 11 other people in the same boat on the same list.
We’ll put an end to the horrible ethos of the present system and turn it into a service. Everybody in this country, regardless of class or economic status will be cherished equally.
In our Service these Patients would be diagnosed in their local centre – by the visiting Consultant and with the waiting lists gone undergo their surgery the following week. Their follow up treatment would take place in their Community, more convenient, less intimidating and less costly to all concerned.
There will be an NBT - National Body Test – an age appropriate annual check up to pick up illnesses early.
There will be Chronic Illness Programmes for diseases like Diabetes, High Blood Pressure and Asthma to mention but a few. These patients will have a regular medical check up so that we keep people well and prevent the costly complications that rob people of life and land them in hospital at great cost to themselves and the state.
Everyone will be insured.
Everyone will have free GP Care.
This is what we mean by Universal Health Care.
And to those naysayers who say it can’t be done because of our economic circumstances, I say of course it can and it will.
In 1948 Britain, our nearest neighbour, three years after a world war that brought it to its knees, created a healthcare service that was the envy of the world.
Now is the time – we have the people – we have the skills – all we have lacked is leadership, until now. Fine Gael will give that leadership. I am up for it. Enda Kenny is up for it.
Are you with us? Are you with us? Then let's send a message to this Government at the Local Elections on Friday, 5 June. Ireland needs a fair health system. The people demand it.
Fine Gael will deliver it.