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THE THIRD WAVE of the pandemic has hit the country harder than could have been imagined, bringing an already stretched health service to breaking point.
Unwelcome records have been broken within the first weeks of the new year, with deaths, cases and numbers in ICU rocketing as frontline staff work around the clock to quell the rising storm.
As staff and resources are again pooled to tackle the latest string of admissions, a host of other services and procedures have been postponed at hospitals across the country.
While attention has been put on elective or non-urgent surgeries or consultant appointments deferred, this month the team at our community-led investigative platform, Noteworthy decided to take a closer look at the impact that Covid-19 is having on services flying under the radar.
We discovered that, among other areas, the crisis has exacerbated a long-term lack of adequate support in emergency psychiatric care, eating disorder services, and for the roll-out of publicly funded IVF treatment.
Emergency mental health services at breaking point
One area that has a need for more support and resources, according to Mater Hospital psychiatrist Anne Doherty, is specialist mental health teams in emergency departments (EDs).
Last month, Dr Doherty explained to us that they are the new frontline in mental health care but are now at a breaking point due to years of underfunding and a lack of hospital beds for psychiatric care.
The data would appear to bear this out. Today, we have just 22 acute public mental health beds per 100,000 population, compared with the EU average of 70 per 100,000.
Services are also underfunded compared to EU colleagues, receiving around 6% of our healthcare budget compared with 10 to 13% in the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.
The Noteworthy team wants to investigate the measures being taken to tackle a pandemic-induced mental health crisis in Ireland. You can support this project here.
Failed by the health system
A bid to shore up some of the gaps in general mental health funding during the pandemic has, in turn, highlighted serious failings in other areas, including support for people with eating disorders.
As we revealed last month, the entire amount of last year’s development funding for eating disorder services was used to cover other areas of mental health provision.
This is not the first year funding failed to match the State’s promised spend. To date, just €137,000 (3.4%) of €4 million in development funding for eating disorders has been spent since 2018.
This lack of support has taken a toll, with several people with eating disorders, parents and medical professionals all contacting us about their struggles with the current system.
A letter to Noteworthy from one parent summed up the frustration of families trying to get the required medical attention for their loved ones:
This is just one of the personal stories that we want to highlight in our proposed Silent Treatment investigation to find out if people with eating disorders are being failed by the public health system. You can find out more details on how you can support this work here.
Funding Fertility
The frustration of various couples has also been expressed to us in recent months about another long overlooked but vitally important area – infertility treatment.
Almost one in six couples in Ireland face fertility difficulties, leaving many to face thousands in costs for assisted human reproduction treatment, as they wait on public funding to support those undergoing fertility treatment, first announced in 2017.
This has led many people to travel overseas for cheaper fertility treatment – something that the pandemic has impacted – and as we showed last month, there continue to be long delays in the roll out of a public model.
According to Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, the development of planned regional fertility hubs has “slowed due to the management of the Covid-19 pandemic”. In addition, the Department of Health confirmed to us that it cannot provide a concrete timeline for rollout of publicly-funded IVF.
Rory Tallon, who has cystic fibrosis and underwent IVF with his wife Sarah before the birth of each of their two daughters, told us that the cost of treatment was comparable to the cost of a wedding or house deposit.
Emma McDade, who is currently undergoing fertility treatment, wrote an opinion piece for us recently where she called for promised regulation of the sector, citing costly tests and extra ‘add-ons’. She gave an example of a blood test which cost five times more in the clinic compared to her local GP office.
We want to shine a spotlight on this issue and examine if these long delays in publicly funding IVF has destroyed some people’s chance to have children. Here is how you can support this work.
How to help
You can also help Noteworthy in a few other ways:
To find out how contributions are used, or anything else about how Noteworthy works, click here. You can also sign up to our Insider Newsletter or find us on Twitter and Facebook. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to email information@noteworthy.ie
Thanks so much for your continued support!
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The health service isn’t “overlooked”. It’s just terribly ran and inefficient.
@Seán Ó hAnnracháin: Agree the Irish Health Service consumes 11% of our GDP v 9% average for other EU countries. Transparency needed on unit production. How many total manhours per procedure (direct and all indirect) v international benchmarks? Please publish.
- 2 Tier Irish Health System is obscene.
- Belfast buses from West Cork for cataract operations.
Tidal wave of health and mental issue s will follow.
The worse is yet to come.
‘Overlooked’ as in intentionally underfunded to scare people into the arrms of private health insurance companies.
“That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital” – Noam Chomsky
@The Risen: Funding has increased by 1/5 over the past 5 years, so the HSE is definitely not being “underunded”, but epically mis-managed. But don’t let facts get in the way of your little rants.
@The Risen: it’s a thought but I don’t really think so there are a lot off buffoons in charge
@The Risen: nothing underfunded about our health service… It’s run by a bunch of interest groups who are more concerned with their share rather than the health of the nation. Top heavy management that wasn’t thinned out in the move from Health Boards to the HSE maintains the lack of value and continuing inefficiency of any investment. Hospitals owned or managed by “patrons” despite being funded and developed by the state limit the mobility and efficiency of trained staff. Working practices designed to ensure as much staff as possible are paid at higher levels and a ridiculous consultant contract all contribute to ensure that any individual procedure actually costs more than the equivalent in a private setting, any of the double jobbing consultants will confirm this.
@The Risen: You say this because the HSE SHOULD BE a leftists’ wet dream – a big public sector (union dominated) organisation running our health system for the benefit of the public. But it’s a disaster. But that’s ok, because just blame the mean Gov or those evil capitalists. Hate to burst your bubble, but the HSE is the way it is because it is dominated by public sector vested interests (i.e Unions). There is no real accountability. There is no desire from within for change and any significant change is fought tooth nail because the status quo suits the special interests (i.e PS unions)- they’ve carved it out this way. At least if you’re paying for a service, the provider has an interest in providing you a good service. The HSE bureaucrat has no such interest, they are paid regardless.
All future governments will tie up the banking crisis borrowings with loans from Covid and will blame “Covid” for everything for years to come.
What health service as its near impossible to even see a GP these days
have your say