The Government was yesterday called on to ringfence funding from increased taxation to meet the growing healthcare needs of Ireland's ageing population.
The call came from geriatric consultant Dr Cillian Twomey, who said that Ireland's ageing population will require increasing resources to provide for them over the next 40 or so years, when there will be more older than younger people in the country.
Dr Twomey said the issue will have to be addressed by Government as the percentage of people over 65 in the State is forecast to grow dramatically from its current level, and the demographic balance of the State will change.
Today some 433,000 people are over 65 in Ireland, representing 12 per cent of the population. But by 2011, the number will increase to 520,000 while by 2020, one in four will be over 65 years. By 2050, older people will outnumber children for the first time, he said.
People will also continue to live longer but will require more medical care, with the number of people over 75 predicted to rise by 20 per cent by 2015. The number of people over 85 is predicted to rise by 30 per cent over the same period, he pointed out.
Dr Twomey, consultant physician in geriatric medicine at Cork University Hospital, also suggested that there appeared to be a double standard of care for those who suffer from disabling illnesses such as strokes and those with acute problems.
People suffering from acute illnesses such as heart attacks and renal failure received quality medical care in Ireland but somebody who suffered a stroke, which was seriously disabling, was very often told that they were not going to get better and nothing more could be done for them, he said.
Dr Twomey was speaking at the fourth Population Health Summer School at UCC which was jointly organised by the HSE's Southern Area's department of public health, UCC's department of epidemiology and public health and the Institute of Public Health in Ireland.
Meanwhile Minister for Health Mary Harney was warned at the conference that introducing an American-style private health system could lead to major problems for patients with chronic illnesses while also leading to a shortage of trained consultants in the public health system.
British expert Prof Allyson Pollock was strongly critical of the move towards privatisation of the National Health Service in Britain. She said that going down the private health route would be "like opening a Pandora's Box", with the private sector prioritising profit rather than treatment with serious consequences for people's health.
"In the UK, it has led to cherry-picking of patient treatment and services that are profitable such as elective surgeries like hip replacements, gall bladder operations while it has also led to top heart and cancer specialists leaving for the private sector," she said.
Prof Martin McKee, professor of European public health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that experience in London showed that going down the private health route posed major difficulties for those with chronic illness.