Ten-year health strategy aims to be 'world class' service

The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has today said the Government’s goal is to provide a "world class" health service to every patient in…

The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has today said the Government’s goal is to provide a "world class" health service to every patient in the country.

Speaking at the unveiling of the Government’s health strategy today, Mr Ahern said such a service equated to "internationally determined best standards of care, to be delivered within a specified time, available to all on an equitable basis".

He said the Government had made an "unprecedented series of annual increases" in health funding this year but claimed this was just the beginning. Today's document, Quality and Fairness - a Health System for You, accounts for £10 billion spent over 10 years, based on current prices.

Mr Ahern outlined plans to hire more doctors, nurses and other health professionals to address what he called current capacity constraints.

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He also said there would be significant investment in new facilities to enable a system that will reduce waiting lists to "three months at most and not one day longer".

The Minister for Health and Children, Mr Martin, said people in Ireland were "sicker than the rest of Europe", with the highest rate of heart disease in the EU.

He said the only thing that would make Irish people better was improved investment such as that outlined in the quality and fairness strategy.

Mr Martin promised to cut hospital waiting lists for all public patients by the end of 2002 and said no one would have to wait 12 months for treatment.

He said that by the end of 2003, no adult would have to wait more than six months for treatment and a child would not have to wait longer than three.

The Government also announced plans for 650 extra hospital beds over the next year in "areas that most need them" and 3,000 beds in the system by 2011.

It also pledged to make primary care a "central issue", to extend the role of the ombudsman to include voluntary hospitals and to establish before the end of 2001 a new National Hospitals Agency to oversee the re-configuration of the hospitals system.

Mr Martin said the investment outlined in the strategy was necessary and offered the document as "the benchmark against which any future government will be measured".