{"id":847,"date":"2007-10-24T12:11:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-24T16:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=847"},"modified":"2007-10-24T12:11:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-24T16:11:00","slug":"doctor-x-takes-on-flawed-irish-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=847","title":{"rendered":"Doctor X takes on flawed (Irish) system"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.irishhealth.com\/index.html?level=4&amp;id=12288\">Doctor X takes on flawed system<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He told \u2018Morning Ireland\u2019 that the two biggest problems in Ireland were lack of accountability in the Health Service Executive, and the two-tiered system of private and public health. \u201cConsultants hold all the power in the Irish system, and that is one of the main problems,\u201d he said. The Bitter Pill devotes a chapter to his criticisms of the two-tier system. \u201cIn order that a private health service can justify its existence, it is necessary that it offers a better service than the public health service. It follows, then, that the public service is below-par and therefore unable to deliver best practice,\u201d he writes. Among the many flaws he describes is the fact that consultants are often not in a hospital when one of their patients is ready for discharge, because they are at their private clinics. This can mean that a patient who is ready to leave must stay in hospital, sometimes over a weekend, with all the attendant costs on the system and the \u2018blocking of the bed\u2019 for the next sick person.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>His book is <strong>The Bitter Pill: An Insider\u2019s Shocking Expose of the Irish Health System<\/strong>.<br \/><\/em><br \/><em>There is another book, <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gillmacmillan.ie\/Ecom\/Library3.nsf\/CatalogByCategory\/D7A7AD3F38D2DE278025726D00460923?OpenDocument\"><em>Emergency Irish Hospitals In Chaos &#8211; Author Marie O Connor <\/em><\/a><em>, and I&#8217;m trying to find out more about it. <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rte.ie\/tv\/theafternoonshow\/1134711.html\"><em>Here&#8217;s something.<\/em><\/a><br \/><em><\/em><br \/><em>In any case, just trying to gather information about what we want in a healthcare system and what we want to avoid.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Doctor X takes on flawed system: &#8220;He told \u2018Morning Ireland\u2019 that the two biggest problems in Ireland were lack of accountability in the Health Service Executive, and the two-tiered system &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=847\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Doctor X takes on flawed (Irish) system&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ireland"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}