Madam, - Mary Raftery's column yesterday was correct in one central matter: the Progressive Democrats work to solve problems. We do so, however, not by slight of hand, but by substantive policy change for permanent solutions.
I suspect this is the very reason why our opponents in politics, and in parts of the media, rail so vehemently against us.
The National Treatment Purchase Fund is a case in point. Before we proposed this idea, under the old waiting-list regime, public patients had to wait for operations sometimes for years and with no reliable appointments. Now nearly all patients can be offered a definite appointment by the NTPF after three months.
Our political opponents continue to denigrate the NTPF. But patients like it. Over 43,000 have benefited from it. It has improved patients' experience radically. It also means that public patients, for the first time, have access to the capacity that exists in private hospitals, just like patients with health insurance.
Ms Raftery must know that the old waiting-list regime was bad for patients, and that the data on waiting lists was also hopelessly unreliable. There are many reports and analyses to confirm this. Yesterday, on your Letters page, the NTPF explained briefly how the new Patient Treatment Register works by putting patients' waiting times for operations, not unreliable statistics about waiting lists, at the centre of administration.
I readily acknowledge there will continue to be many challenges in health to deliver quality, safe, timely care for patients.
As we continue this work in Government, it is easy for the Labour Party leader, followed then by columnists, to highlight a difficult individual case, as he did this week. It's easy politics, but also misleading and irresponsible.
In the case of Mrs O'Gorman, Mr Rabbitte sought to imply that a lack of resources, or neglect, was the cause of her continued pain. Not so. Mrs O'Gorman's case is medically complex and is actively being handled by a team of clinicians making their clinical judgments as to her best care. To date only five procedures of the type required by Mrs O'Gorman have been carried out by MS sufferers in Cork University Hospital.
She is also receiving support in the home. I expect the best clinical judgment as to her care is being made without delay and the resources to support that will not be an issue. Ms Raftery's subsequent linking of this case with waiting times for surgical operations is invalid, to say the least.
Unfortunately, patients will continue to present with clinical conditions where there are no immediate clinical measures to restore their full health or alleviate pain or symptoms as much as we would all want to.
It is also the case, as I have said before, that there are no immediate, simple solutions to the challenges that we face in our health system to deliver, fast, quality-assured, safe patient care to everyone. However, there are reforms and actions available that will deliver these outcomes, the very reforms the Government is undertaking with the HSE and backing with substantial public resources.
We are turning the corner on health, steadily and permanently. - Yours etc,
MARY HARNEY TD, Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Government Buildings, Dublin 2.