Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said he will be seeking a meeting with the two members of the Sláintecare management team who resigned this week “to get their perspective”.
Executive director of the Sláintecare programme office, Laura Magahy, and the chair of its implementation advisory committee, Tom Keane, resigned earlier this week.
On Friday morning, The Irish Times reported that senior figures associated with the Sláintecare health reform plans were unhappy at delays by Government in implementing proposed radical changes to HSE structures over recent months.
There were also concerns over governance issues associated with Government plans being drawn up for tackling rising hospital waiting lists, it is understood.
Work on drawing up the new plan involved the HSE, Department of Health, the National Treatment Purchase Fund as well as the Sláintecare office, and there were issues in recent months about which body would be responsible for which elements and reporting structures.
Highly placed figures last night confirmed there had been fierce disagreements on the issue.
Double resources
Speaking on Friday morning, Mr Martin said the HSE had been absorbed by the Covid-19 crisis for the past 12 months.
It had been “all hands on deck” while “huge resources” had been put into health, he told RTÉ radio's Morning Ireland.
When asked about the previous recommendation that Sláintecare should come under the auspices of the Department of the Taoiseach, Mr Martin said that the Taoiseach's office did not have “the bandwidth” for such a programme.
The Government was prepared to double the resources to public health. He acknowledged that waiting lists were high, and said part of the reason for this was the pandemic and two lockdowns which had a “severe impact” on the health service.
Other aspects of Sláintecare had been delivered and significant changes had occurred, he said. It had been “a terrible year” for all working in the health service because of Covid and the cyberattack, added Mr Martin.
