Drumm comments at briefing 'beggared belief', say SF
HSE chief executive Professor Brendan Drumm has been criticised by Sinn Féin spokesperson Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin after attending Drumm's briefing for Oireachtas members today.
“I told Professor Drumm that his refusal to acknowledge the unacceptability of his recent remarks blaming people in the Midlands for the mammography crisis at Portlaoise Hospital and his refusal to confirm the many crises in our health services beggar belief,” said Ó Caoláin.
“I acknowledged Professor Drumm had been a world-class paediatric consultant. However in saying that, I reminded him that Steve Staunton was once a world class soccer player.
“Professor Drumm spoke of ‘incentivising performance’. This translates, in reality, to penalising hospitals which are already under-resourced, and thus compounding their difficulties. Yet the HSE chief defended this approach.
“In a Dáil reply to me yesterday Health Minister Harney confirmed that the hospital co-location/privatisation scheme is proceeding at six hospital sites.
“This morning, Professor Drumm repeated his already stated belief that the co-location plans represented direct competition for the public system but they would ‘meet the challenge’. I can only describe as crazy this notion of competing public and private hospitals with the State footing the bill for both.
“I told Professor Drumm that this is a scheme that will worsen the public/private apartheid in the system, weaken the public system and boost the private for-profit hospital sector. I challenged him to impress his concerns in this regard on Government.
“Professor Drumm was strongly challenged on the cutting of services at local hospitals and the drive to over-centralisation. The Teamwork Report envisages only the most basic of care provision at all existing hospital sites in the North East region.
“Minor injuries, routine diagnostics and outpatient clinics will be the order of the day. All surgical and medical emergencies and all A&E will be centred in the new regional hospital.”
