11.28.07
Bi-partisan?
She had the nerve to ask for a bi-partisan approach. How about starting us off with a partisan approach? Her junior minister Jimmy Devins sat beside her and contributed to the debate in this profound fashion…
Joan Burton: “The worry used to be that staff in hospitals were not washing their hands. Now we see the Minister washing her hands and refusing to take responsibility for the crisis.”
Deputy Jimmy Devins: “That is ridiculous.”
Yes Jimmy. How about, its ridiculous that the Minister for Health stands up and in all seriousness asks for opposition support for her policies when her own junior minister doesn’t support them.
Jeeeez.
And if I hear one more time about her “spirited” performance I’ll crack. She nearly burst into tears. Again. Is that what she does at the consultant contract negotiations? If you don’t sign I’ll cry? It’s not working Minister. Try another strategy….
thestudent said,
November 28, 2007 at 11:48 am
There is a good chance that if the current scenario played out in the UK, the minister would have resigned by now. But I’m not sure it would be a good move.
I keep reading newspapers with comments (off the record) from opposition politicians who (i) think Harney is only great, (ii) don’t think she’s responsible for the current fiasco, (iii) think she’s the best person on the government benches for the job and (iv) acknowledge that no-one in any part wants her job.
So it strikes me as utterly opportunistic and cowardly to seek a no-confidence motion in her now. Particularly when the problems in Portlaoise are the sort which arise when centres of excellence are not in place and opposition politicians (along with FF ones too) protest at any change in small hospital services.
Now, sorry to do an anti-FG rant but you are interested in that party! Can’t remember who, but an FG TD commented last week that seeking a no-confidence motion in a minister was an extreme measure and last resort. What was their first resort? If it’s such a nuclear option, why is this the second no confidence motion since the last election? Anyone have the stats on how many were called in the last Dail?
As for Olwyn Enright. Of course, it must have been a difficult time for her when she had her scare two years ago. But, two years ago, she obviously went to lengths to keep the matter private, which is understandable. Now that the issue has arisen, off she goes to the Sindo to use her own private personal story as a headline grabbing political stunt. To my mind, that’s a very poor sign of a politician, who will use anything to get in the press and score a point. And we can’t criticise her, because she had a scare, making her untouchable.
Sarah said,
November 28, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Good point. Particularly since the point of her story was that she was taken care of in a few weeks on the VHI….
HOWEVER Fintan O’Toole made a good point yesterday. Fair enough, Harney didn’t know about the ultrasounds, but Naughton wrote to her two years ago and said he wouldn’t put his own wife through Portlaoise. She never even responded when she should’ve picked up the phone. Why didn’t she even phone him on Wednesday night? It’s just a weird lack of engagement…
diggy said,
November 28, 2007 at 12:29 pm
a national day of protest is being held on 7th December 2007, check out http://www.digoutday.com/
The Crewser said,
November 28, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Health service reform should be a straightforward process but unfortunately with the opposition intents on playing politics with it and their apologists in the media and on sites like this backing them you the hilt it would be much more tortuous and long drawn out. But it was a decisive move by Mary Harney putting her detractors on the spot in relation to a common approach to cancer care. The spin the media would put on it is something else however.
Sarah said,
November 28, 2007 at 1:32 pm
A for f*ck’s sake Crewser “unfortunately with the opposition intent on playing politics with it..” The opposition? THE OPPOSITION? Look to your own my friend. I just turned off Bev on the News at One lobbying for Castlebar to be a centre of Excellence EVEN though Keane has said treatment like chemotherapy could stay in local centres once diagnosis and management was done at the centre.
The Bad Ambassador said,
November 28, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Great post.
O’Toole’s article yesterday was bang on the money. I fail to see how anybody could read it and still think Harney should finish the job (I can only assume at this stage that the “job” is some kind of population cull). A number of people have, in recent days, made the point that is is not possible to think of any government TD who would be up to the task of fixing the health service – but that’s beside the point, at this stage its all about the principle.
As far as Harney is concerned its very simple: Either she knew what was going on and did nothing (in which case she is clearly not up to the job) or she knew nothing until the rest of us (in which case she is clearly not up to the job). If she is not up to the job she should resign.
brian t said,
November 28, 2007 at 1:45 pm
As a side issue, isn’t it a little disconcerting to have a Minster for Health who is a picture of un-Health? It’s a bit like seeing an airline pilot with dark glasses and a cane, or a priest in leather and studs. Eek!
Tomaltach said,
November 28, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I used to think that while I disagree with Harney’s policy on privatisation, at least I applaud her efforts at reform. She was at least prepared to take on the big guys. But in the end she has to be judged on results not effort. The picture now emerging is that Harney failed to react to warnings on the radar.
Having said that I think we should for a moment appreciate that she has by far and away the most difficult department. First because it is the biggest and most complex, and second because it relates to the emotive issue of health. We should therefore appreciate the number of issues on the minister’s desk, from consultants contracts, to centralising services, to childrens hospital, etc and I’m sure twenty other major issues. So her job is perhaps the most difficult one on offer for any member of Dáil Éireann.
Apart from disagreeing on policy, my biggest gripe is that the minister has failed to restructure the HSE so that it is fit for purpose – from a functioning HSE flows a solution to many of the other issues – from hospital hygiene to cancer care. The minister has not explained why there was a huge bloat in middle management in the years following the health board mergers. I would have expected a redundancy of resources as economies of scale were reached and overlap eliminated. Some weeks ago Fintan O’Toole also pointed out that the body on public pay had difficulty assessing many layers of the HSE because … it simply wasn’t clear what role these people had and how their job spec was evolving. Here again I fault the minister – she has had enough time to work with Drumm to build a system with a clear chain of command from ward sister to himself. She has had in my view adequate time to do this.
Having said all of this, I am pretty sure that if Harney were to be replaced, she’d be replaced by another FF mucker who’d take the poisoned chalice to serve his or her time with a view to rewards later, and do nothing more than keep the balls in the air. i.e a Michael Martin approach. So those calling for Harney’s head should think twice. What is the alternative?
Sarah said,
November 28, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I agree with that completely. The abolition of the Health Boards had to be done. The problem was that everyone’s job was guaranteed. That was the outrage.
Oh and did I see Niamh Brennan coming out of the HSE Board meeting last night?
Crocodile said,
November 28, 2007 at 3:21 pm
FG man Reilly has been quite good on this, I thought. He made the best point on Q&A the other night: that hospitals will not be clean when you bring in contract cleaners who are only around for a couple of weeks and have no service ethos. If only he and his party would take that to its logical conclusion and acknowledge that the people who best know how to run the health service are the people who deliver it on the front line. Instead Harney, on ideological grounds, does everything she can to avoid listening to the likes of Maurice Neligan and John Crown
All the stuff about ‘Systems failures’ and ‘vested interests’ is a giveaway: the whole thing is a misguided attempt to impose a managerialist approach on a public service. Talk to any front-line worker in the health service and she’ll tell you: more beds, less form-filling, less political interference, more respect for the professionals, less bean-counting. But that is pure anathema to the PDs who, deep down, think everything is about management.
BTW, great line: ‘I’m not a quitter’. The colloquial use of the term ‘quitter’ ,Mary, is in reference to a shirker, someone who gives up too easily – not someone who doesn’t know when she’s beaten, or is immune to embarrassment.
Colman said,
November 28, 2007 at 3:58 pm
It is a system failure and it is largely caused by “vested interests”. The problem is that a good portion of the TDs are closely linked to the vested interests in question.
The system has been set up to fail by successive generations of TDs and voters who want services in their district andt jobs in their constituencies. Clientism is the particular curse of our electoral system.
To fix it we would need to
* Admit and acknowledge that the health service has been used as a job factory for decades. There are days that I think that the fucked up decentralisation plan was partly intended to offset the job losses that rationalising the health service would cause down-country.
* Pay-off unneeded admin people or redeploy them to do something – anything – useful. I don’t care what.
* Discuss what health service we want, how much it costs and to what extent we can realistically provide it on an all-Ireland basis, possibly relying on consultants in larger EU countries for some of the more obscure cases (which would probably be a useful initiative at an EU level – wonder if it already exists?) Our population is too small to support the best possible care for the weird and wonderful cases.
* Stop pretending that we can have low taxes and good public services. If we want a good standard of universal health care then we need to pay for it. If we want one where the rich get good care and the poor die screaming let’s say so and be done with it: instead we get a half-assed policy of piecemeal privatisation and bullshit. Frankly, I’m getting to the point where I won’t care which we choose – I’ll pay more taxes or I’ll buy health insurance.
In the end of the day the Irish electorate voted for the incumbent government, more-or-less, even though they must have known that they were being lied to.
The Crewser said,
November 28, 2007 at 4:49 pm
FG man Reilly is part of the Doctors lobby group one of those “vested interests” I talked about previously. He appears more like a property developer than a shadow spokesman on Health. Oops maybe he is a property developer in his spare time. One does not really know where his interests lie at this stage.
And Sarah I know various politicians in all parties want centres of excellence in their own constituencies but what is required from the leaders of the opposition is a bit of courage and a bit of bravery. If there was all party agreement on something like this it would get rid of the “home town” element whether its Bev or Michael Ring.
Gordon Davies said,
November 28, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Harney will never get a inter party agreement on health until she puts an end to her socially divisive and medically inept project of using public funds to build and subsidise private hospitals in the grounds of public facilities.
She has repeatedly demonstrated a profound ignorance of how large administrations function. Somebody should loan her a few elementary text-books on the sociology of organisations.
her resignation would be a start… which should be followed by the resignation of this Government.
Gordon
The Crewser said,
November 28, 2007 at 5:17 pm
An the we could let Enda and James Reilly loose on the Health service. What a nighmare prospect that would be. There must be private investment in Healthcare but it must be carefully controlled.
Tomaltach said,
November 28, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Crewser, you say There must be private investment in Healthcare but it must be carefully controlled.
But how can it be controlled? If the government cannot control the administration and spending within its very own system, how can it be expected to control a private sector?
The Crewser said,
November 28, 2007 at 7:04 pm
I would suggest to you that, that is what Health service reform is all about. Getting value for money. Its a pity all parties in Dail Eireann would not give their support to such an ideal.
Crocodile said,
November 28, 2007 at 7:48 pm
‘I would suggest to you that, that is what Health service reform is all about. Getting value for money’
Of course it is, Crewser. For the PDs, that’s what life itself is all about.
Gordon Davies said,
November 28, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Glad to see that Crewser supports Labour party policy for universal health insurance…the only way to control capitalists eager to make money from other peole’s ill-health.
Gordon
Dan Sullivan said,
November 28, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Bipartisan in Harney’s mind means support whatever the government is doing. If she wants the support of the opposition then what aspects of the opposition’s policies from the general election that would be in conflict with her current policy will she implement. None, and since she got re-elected to government she doesn’t have to but that also means the mess is entirety hers to fix.
I agree with the point above about the HSE. Harney didn’t put the HSE in the hands of some focused group of benevolent dictators, she gave it over the same shower of incompetent bureaucrats that had been running the healths boards. Harney spoke of how difficult it was for her to get information, but somehow that won’t happen again. What actually did she do to ensure that?
And for the information of those who talk about vested interests, the greatest group with a vested interest in the health service is the public and what is wrong with they having a vested interest?
The Crewser said,
November 30, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Gordon, thats taking extrapolation to a whole new level. Value for money and Labour Party policy would be poles apart.