20 cigarettes up 50cent.

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I'm not sure whether it is people taking up smoking or existing smokers paying more.

As to the health data, I can only find reports detailing smoking habits, but nothing on how governmental strategies have impacted the health service.

The benefits of giving up/not starting are widely commended, so then surely there must be some evidence of savings, otherwise what's it all for?
Edit Double post.
 
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I just don't get that. It is one of my pet irritants; not just in the HSE.

Analysis, costing, planning, innovation, etc., depend on appropriate reliable data.

"I'd say" or "In my opinion" of itself, is worthless unless it is proved.
Oh I agree and even when I had nothing to do after getting out of hospital I decided to analyse cancer in Ireland and see where we were in various areas, cancer is a serious disease but the lack of data, that improved post 1995 with the setting up of the Cancer register but it's so understaffed theres only so much they can do, of course all data prior gone.

Even during the pandemic the data released here and submitted to ECDC doesn't match exactly its about 95/6
% accurate and they weren't sending data or gathering it for months.

I find it incredible that they don't use data to create budgets, or strategically plan its maddening and isn't going to change
 
So do I.

Lobby our local representatives? Sometimes it works. I have had some success over the years.
I'm afraid my 4 are as useless as an astray on a bike.
When in Tallaght I used to breakout and one day Trevor Sargent was in the reception area, he had nothing to do with health but I launched anyway, in my dressing gown and hooked up to a drip, he simply out listened me.
 
How did you conclude that they don't use data to create budgets or strategically plan?
The shambolic state of the Health Service, despite very high levels of funding would lead me to believe that there is a lack of strategic planning.
The alternative is hard to contemplate as it would involve wilful waste and deliberately causing suffering. I prefer to assume incompetence rather than malice.
 
How did you conclude that they don't use data to create budgets or strategically plan?
They don't and if they do the data is wrong, simple example when I was sick I was treated in 4 hospitals, in Tallaght I had my bloods done every morning, I had to go to StJames to have my stem cells harvested and on arrival bloods were taken again. Each hospital set up a new unique hospital number for me and I was classified as a patient in each. If the HSE had no other patients at that time I know they would have reported 4 patients, ie me in 4 separate hospitals, if they used that data for anything they would be overstating by a factor of 4.

The mother in law died in July and since then we have received 9 letters from the HSE advising her of up coming appointments in 3 hospitals.

I could go on, but the evidence of how the HSE creates/uses data is shambolic.
 
They don't and if they do the data is wrong, simple example when I was sick I was treated in 4 hospitals, in Tallaght I had my bloods done every morning, I had to go to StJames to have my stem cells harvested and on arrival bloods were taken again. Each hospital set up a new unique hospital number for me and I was classified as a patient in each. If the HSE had no other patients at that time I know they would have reported 4 patients, ie me in 4 separate hospitals, if they used that data for anything they would be overstating by a factor of 4.

The mother in law died in July and since then we have received 9 letters from the HSE advising her of up coming appointments in 3 hospitals.

I could go on, but the evidence of how the HSE creates/uses data is shambolic.
That must be a large part of the reason the HSE states that they have a quarter of a million patients on waiting lists. They probably have a quarter of that.
I see Fintan O'Toole cynically using sick children to score cheap political points in the Irish Times again. His complete lack of integrity is literally stomach turning.
 
That must be a large part of the reason the HSE states that they have a quarter of a million patients on waiting lists. They probably have a quarter of that.
I see Fintan O'Toole cynically using sick children to score cheap political points in the Irish Times again. His complete lack of integrity is literally stomach turning.
I actually had an opportunity to ask someone in the HSE that exact question about and while she weren't talking directly she said as much, people are referred to multiple locations and counted. The INMO take these numbers too.

We've drifted off topic, I'm going out now for a fag, bought in Spain last week. €8 a packet and their health system seems to operate fine with that price.
 
I actually had an opportunity to ask someone in the HSE that exact question about and while she weren't talking directly she said as much, people are referred to multiple locations and counted. The INMO take these numbers too.
The INMO know the numbers are incorrect but use them anyway because they care more about leveraging more money from the State than the sick and vulnerable.
 
They don't and if they do the data is wrong, simple example when I was sick I was treated in 4 hospitals, in Tallaght I had my bloods done every morning, I had to go to StJames to have my stem cells harvested and on arrival bloods were taken again. Each hospital set up a new unique hospital number for me and I was classified as a patient in each. If the HSE had no other patients at that time I know they would have reported 4 patients, ie me in 4 separate hospitals, if they used that data for anything they would be overstating by a factor of 4.

The mother in law died in July and since then we have received 9 letters from the HSE advising her of up coming appointments in 3 hospitals.

I could go on, but the evidence of how the HSE creates/uses data is shambolic.
Honestly, this says nothing about how they do or don't plan strategically. It's a fair bet that the HSE folks who add up patient numbers are only too well aware that the same person will be registered in multiple hospitals, and they don't simply add up the number of patients at each hospital to come up with a total number of patients.

The only thing this experience tells you is that we don't have an integrated patient management system running across all hospitals.

Here's their strategic plan btw: https://www.hse.ie/eng/about/who/qid/strategic-plan-2019-2024/
 
Honestly, this says nothing about how they do or don't plan strategically. It's a fair bet that the HSE folks who add up patient numbers are only too well aware that the same person will be registered in multiple hospitals, and they don't simply add up the number of patients at each hospital to come up with a total number of patients.

The only thing this experience tells you is that we don't have an integrated patient management system running across all hospitals.

Here's their strategic plan btw: https://www.hse.ie/eng/about/who/qid/strategic-plan-2019-2024/
I'll ask how do they eliminate that double counting, because I know for a fact their systems aren't aligned and some systems are from the early 90s.

But let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say they are aware of dublication and account for it what does that render the data used for input into planning either operationally or strategically, in 2 words redundant and comprised. I mean this is room 101 stuff when planning.
I'll leave it at that as we are way off topic now.
 
I'll ask how do they eliminate that double counting, because I know for a fact their systems aren't aligned and some systems are from the early 90s.
That's the crux of it. If they can eliminate the double counting then there's an integrated patient identification system somewhere. If Joseph Heller was still alive he's be suing for plagiarism.
 
That's the crux of it. If they can eliminate the double counting then there's an integrated patient identification system somewhere. If Joseph Heller was still alive he's be suing for plagiarism.
Who's Joseph Heller? , and I'm not joking
 
The best Heller quote; Some years after Catch 22 was published a journalist said to him that he hadn't written anything as good since. He said "I know, but who has?".

Anyway, back to the bickering...
 
It's a fair bet that the HSE folks who add up patient numbers are only too well aware that the same person will be registered in multiple hospitals, and they don't simply add up the number of patients at each hospital to come up with a total number of patients.
Really?
According to the HSE 1 in every 7.65 people in this country is waiting for a first outpatient appointment and in total 1 in every 5.5 people is waiting for an appointment. That's 908,000 people waiting for an appointment. One in every 5.5 people in this country is sick enough to need hospital treatment.

From the link above “Those of us who work in healthcare have proven that even in the most unprecedented of challenges, we can deliver solutions. It is now beyond time for those in leadership positions to do likewise,” said IHCA president Prof Alan Irvine."
He should be laughed out the door. Is he seriously suggesting that the President of the IHCA isn't in a leadership position? Does he think we forgot that they held out for 14 years in their negotiations for a new contract (with god only knows how much suffering and death caused directly by them).
 
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