So people who can’t afford health insurance will be able to afford flights and accommodation in Spain?
Why fix it when we can outsource it
We are a failed “Republic”
Jesus Christ that’s depressing. I mean, great that it’s available as a solution I suppose, but Jesus Christ that’s depressing.
FF and FG everyone…..
Here’s a further explainer, so not only do they have to go abroad, they first **have to take out a loan** (even if they have as little as €5) and then will be paid back by the HSE (the level of bureaucracy)
The HSE has acknowledged waiting lists are **creating opportunities for private hospitals abroad** and said the involvement of credit unions could see patients get treated sooner.
General manager of the HSE commercial unit, Catherine Donohue, said: “In an ideal world we wouldn’t have patients waiting, but there are patients waiting. **It is a lucrative and very valid market for private providers, and public patients benefit enormously from it**.”
I would say a bar plan but this looks Einstein level next to the out of control children’s hospital project… HSE really is Angola
What do people expect? The HSE isn’t run for the patients, it’s run for management
In a few occasions I’ve had to travel to Spain to be seen by a specialist because the waiting list here was ridiculous or I wasn’t being referred full stop.
I have family there, so that wasn’t a huge problem for me in principle (besides the fact that I had to go abroad because services here were unavailable which is extremely frustrating), but if I had had to get accommodation and take care of myself on my own in another country it would have been a nightmare.
The thing is that, because I was seen abroad, doctors here don’t take the report as it’s not official in their eyes. It’s nowhere in my clinical records in Ireland and they won’t take it as valid “proof” that I was diagnosed, because it was done in Spain.
I’m not sure how they’re going to handle this seeing that most hospitals here still do not use digital records either. It takes a whole week for a letter from a GP to get to the specialist and viceversa (at least in Co. Cork). How long will it take if you get things done in Spain?
Besides that, how will they manage follow ups? How do they expect someone to recover without supervision? How do they expect someone to travel with Ryanair with a recent hip surgery? Having to take a loan to get seen by a doctor US style? FFS.
So many questions…
As someone that thinks that healthcare would be better run as an EU competency the idea seems fine but the implementation is utterly awful.
Overall the idea of somewhere in the EU there being spare capacity at times for specific specialists makes a lot of sense but in those cases transport should be provided.
This idea of people having to take a loan that the HSE might pay back is awful.
I had to go up to Belfast recently as they’d no room here. The HSE were supposed to contact me with the date but never did. The clinic in Belfast rang me 3 days before and said that none of the HSE referrals had been told their dates so she was ringing them all when she could. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing in HSE management.
Works if you can actually get through any of the airports maybe before you die of the illness or old age by the time you might get through
We just had a referendum in 2018 about folks being forced to seek healthcare abroad… we agreed it’s not on.
For fuck sake. I would love to go to Spain to get my knee fixed. Only problem is i still have no gp. Everything is full they say. Maybe the hse can get me a Italian gp I wonder 🙄
At least you will be helped by Irish nurses and doctors that all left the island after they finished medical school. Because they can afford a house in Spain and get paid way more than in ireland
On one side, this is awful. On the other, woo, trip to Spain
Fucking dystopian this
This has been going on for a while.
I am on a waiting list (6 years so far, 4 more to go) and was told I can get a credit union loan, go to Derry, get the procedure done and get reimbursed from the HSE later on.
I wouldn’t trust them to validate parking never mind a €10,000 bill from an operation.
Bureaucracy and incompetence all the while I’d have a loan over my head that I can’t afford.
FFS take all that tax money build some new hospitals. Stop Irish med grads from pissing off to Australia with a minimum of five years practice after subsidizing their education. Start offering internships to foreign doctors who go to Irish med schools. Why is HSE hellbent on killing the Irish. Because that’s how far this has gone. People don’t have the time and resources to go outside their own country for care. How many lives will this cost?
Another great indictment that our country is being incessantly run by idiots.
Absolutely embarrassing for our country to have to do this
> The main EU countries where Irish people seek treatment under the scheme are Spain, Poland, Lithuania and Germany.
Some might argue that there are waiting lists in every country, which is true, but it’s embarassing how long ours is considering Ireland ranks high in GDP and developmental index’s. But yet people are getting faster treatment in countries considered less developed
And it’s not just waiting lists. The surgery I need is done in Poland, Romania, Croatia and even fucking North Macedonia, but not here. The HSE is a joke
It’s depressing as someone who works in the health service to read this. Utterly depressing. Trying to advocate for increased capacity for patients to get their surgery here, endless meetings with management, reports after reports detailing HSE management failures gathering dust, medical manpower reports doing the same thing. It’s all a charade. The only thing politicians want out of this is a measurable metric where they can point and say “we got x thousands of patients off the waiting list” when the ballot boxes are rolled out. And it won’t be any different with who ever in government because the structural and capacity issues within the HSE aren’t fixable in even two election cycles and saying you took x thousands off a waiting list is like political crack cocaine to any politician of any hue.
As much as people gripe about NHS waiting times her in the North… the thought of relying on privatised health care freaks me out… even if it’s not as bad as America… Healthcare for Profit does not sit well with me. I just wish we didn’t have 12 years of fucking Tories chipping away at the NHS to get it to it’s current state.
Part government fault partly due to allowing for an overbloated organization that is not value for money to exist.
What’s the end game? Fully private system ?
I think Civil service in general needs new skills to deal with the world we live in today rather than the world as it existed in the 1960’s
They couldn’t organize a piss up in a brewery. The level of incompetence at every level is mindblowing.
Its cheaper to go to Spain than be treated here.
We will be going to Cuba next.
More outsourcing at top dollar. Fuck this government.
So I’m better off waiting in Dublin airport than in Limerick Hospital? …. please media…write another article telling us how great the country is again
My wife had to go to hospital in Spain. Ended up spending 10 days in it. Was like a hotel. She had to go to St James not long after she came back to Ireland. The difference was staggering. They put her in a men’s ward with a sex pest who kept propositioning the nurses and staring at her from the end of her bed. She discharged herself the next day. Came home with Covid.
31 comments
Because that makes sense…
So people who can’t afford health insurance will be able to afford flights and accommodation in Spain?
Why fix it when we can outsource it
We are a failed “Republic”
Jesus Christ that’s depressing. I mean, great that it’s available as a solution I suppose, but Jesus Christ that’s depressing.
FF and FG everyone…..
Here’s a further explainer, so not only do they have to go abroad, they first **have to take out a loan** (even if they have as little as €5) and then will be paid back by the HSE (the level of bureaucracy)
The HSE has acknowledged waiting lists are **creating opportunities for private hospitals abroad** and said the involvement of credit unions could see patients get treated sooner.
General manager of the HSE commercial unit, Catherine Donohue, said: “In an ideal world we wouldn’t have patients waiting, but there are patients waiting. **It is a lucrative and very valid market for private providers, and public patients benefit enormously from it**.”
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40917677.html
I would say a bar plan but this looks Einstein level next to the out of control children’s hospital project… HSE really is Angola
What do people expect? The HSE isn’t run for the patients, it’s run for management
In a few occasions I’ve had to travel to Spain to be seen by a specialist because the waiting list here was ridiculous or I wasn’t being referred full stop.
I have family there, so that wasn’t a huge problem for me in principle (besides the fact that I had to go abroad because services here were unavailable which is extremely frustrating), but if I had had to get accommodation and take care of myself on my own in another country it would have been a nightmare.
The thing is that, because I was seen abroad, doctors here don’t take the report as it’s not official in their eyes. It’s nowhere in my clinical records in Ireland and they won’t take it as valid “proof” that I was diagnosed, because it was done in Spain.
I’m not sure how they’re going to handle this seeing that most hospitals here still do not use digital records either. It takes a whole week for a letter from a GP to get to the specialist and viceversa (at least in Co. Cork). How long will it take if you get things done in Spain?
Besides that, how will they manage follow ups? How do they expect someone to recover without supervision? How do they expect someone to travel with Ryanair with a recent hip surgery? Having to take a loan to get seen by a doctor US style? FFS.
So many questions…
As someone that thinks that healthcare would be better run as an EU competency the idea seems fine but the implementation is utterly awful.
Overall the idea of somewhere in the EU there being spare capacity at times for specific specialists makes a lot of sense but in those cases transport should be provided.
This idea of people having to take a loan that the HSE might pay back is awful.
I had to go up to Belfast recently as they’d no room here. The HSE were supposed to contact me with the date but never did. The clinic in Belfast rang me 3 days before and said that none of the HSE referrals had been told their dates so she was ringing them all when she could. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing in HSE management.
Works if you can actually get through any of the airports maybe before you die of the illness or old age by the time you might get through
We just had a referendum in 2018 about folks being forced to seek healthcare abroad… we agreed it’s not on.
For fuck sake. I would love to go to Spain to get my knee fixed. Only problem is i still have no gp. Everything is full they say. Maybe the hse can get me a Italian gp I wonder 🙄
At least you will be helped by Irish nurses and doctors that all left the island after they finished medical school. Because they can afford a house in Spain and get paid way more than in ireland
On one side, this is awful. On the other, woo, trip to Spain
Fucking dystopian this
This has been going on for a while.
I am on a waiting list (6 years so far, 4 more to go) and was told I can get a credit union loan, go to Derry, get the procedure done and get reimbursed from the HSE later on.
I wouldn’t trust them to validate parking never mind a €10,000 bill from an operation.
Bureaucracy and incompetence all the while I’d have a loan over my head that I can’t afford.
FFS take all that tax money build some new hospitals. Stop Irish med grads from pissing off to Australia with a minimum of five years practice after subsidizing their education. Start offering internships to foreign doctors who go to Irish med schools. Why is HSE hellbent on killing the Irish. Because that’s how far this has gone. People don’t have the time and resources to go outside their own country for care. How many lives will this cost?
Another great indictment that our country is being incessantly run by idiots.
Absolutely embarrassing for our country to have to do this
> The main EU countries where Irish people seek treatment under the scheme are Spain, Poland, Lithuania and Germany.
Some might argue that there are waiting lists in every country, which is true, but it’s embarassing how long ours is considering Ireland ranks high in GDP and developmental index’s. But yet people are getting faster treatment in countries considered less developed
And it’s not just waiting lists. The surgery I need is done in Poland, Romania, Croatia and even fucking North Macedonia, but not here. The HSE is a joke
It’s depressing as someone who works in the health service to read this. Utterly depressing. Trying to advocate for increased capacity for patients to get their surgery here, endless meetings with management, reports after reports detailing HSE management failures gathering dust, medical manpower reports doing the same thing. It’s all a charade. The only thing politicians want out of this is a measurable metric where they can point and say “we got x thousands of patients off the waiting list” when the ballot boxes are rolled out. And it won’t be any different with who ever in government because the structural and capacity issues within the HSE aren’t fixable in even two election cycles and saying you took x thousands off a waiting list is like political crack cocaine to any politician of any hue.
As much as people gripe about NHS waiting times her in the North… the thought of relying on privatised health care freaks me out… even if it’s not as bad as America… Healthcare for Profit does not sit well with me. I just wish we didn’t have 12 years of fucking Tories chipping away at the NHS to get it to it’s current state.
Part government fault partly due to allowing for an overbloated organization that is not value for money to exist.
What’s the end game? Fully private system ?
I think Civil service in general needs new skills to deal with the world we live in today rather than the world as it existed in the 1960’s
They couldn’t organize a piss up in a brewery. The level of incompetence at every level is mindblowing.
Its cheaper to go to Spain than be treated here.
We will be going to Cuba next.
More outsourcing at top dollar. Fuck this government.
So I’m better off waiting in Dublin airport than in Limerick Hospital? …. please media…write another article telling us how great the country is again
My wife had to go to hospital in Spain. Ended up spending 10 days in it. Was like a hotel. She had to go to St James not long after she came back to Ireland. The difference was staggering. They put her in a men’s ward with a sex pest who kept propositioning the nurses and staring at her from the end of her bed. She discharged herself the next day. Came home with Covid.