The Irish Healthcare System

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, unlike the other European healthcare systems, the hospital system is run by the Catholic Church and the physicians work in a highly stratified arrangement, which sufficed when medicine was low tech and ancillary services were not essential; however, today, the necessary transition to a professional systematic supply of services from an appropriate level at affordable cost has not really happened in Ireland. The author states that the medical health insurance schemes could drive reforms, but the absence of competition and their involvement in service provision cause them to not demand change and to pay what existing facilities have negotiated, sometimes with unnecessarily long hospital stays. The paper concludes, based on the Brennan Report (2003) and other authors, that the Irish healthcare system does not work because it is not a system in the true sense of the term.

From the Paper:

"The training capacity for the doctors was set many years ago: Clearly not enough doctors graduating to replace existing staff without heavy external recruitment Is cost-management a part of medical education? Does it make sense to recruit medical students on Leaving Certificate points alone and have high drop-out rates after graduation? UL and UCD propose to recruit more graduates to become doctors as post-graduates. The problem with this proposal is that the students will have to pay higher fees (about E7,000 per annum)."

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