Read on Twitter
Only just caught up with this @RebootPod pod now. Excellent coverage on inequality in Ireland with @TASCblog , especially health inequality, which is often overlooked. It's amazing that 4 years on from the Sláintecare report & we have taken steps away from universal healthcare/1 https://twitter.com/RoryHearne/status/1293523749233360899
The crux of the issue, a two tiered system, private vs public is deeply unequal and instead of moving away from healthcare where access is based on ability to pay and not healthcare need we have handed more money and power to private hospitals /2
We've a huge barrier to achieving universal healthcare, consultant contracts that permit private practice in public hospitals. This needs to be addressed if we're ever to achieve universal healthcare. Right now that contractual right perpetuates the fundamental issue of access /3
That's not to have a dig at those consultants at all, I work with some of them and they are brilliant physicians and incredibly decent people. It is a flaw in the system. Ultimately it does lead to crossover. where private patients inadvertently get preferential treatment /4
For example, quicker access to diagnostics, which means treatment outlined quicker than a public patient. What happens when insurance company won't pay for the treatment? They jump to the top of the public queue, at the expense of someone who couldn't afford rapid diagnostics. /5
This also affects marginalised populations disproportionately. The same people that cannot have safe working conditions, that get racial abuse, that live in DP centres, LGBTQ+, homeless, get substandard access to vital healthcare. The people who need it most /6
Ultimately we have a system that was unfit for purpose, that triggered a general election, that a global pandemic has shone a light on and we have the same people overseeing a return to the same old ways expecting the same results. It is the definition of insanity, Rant over.
