I have asked you in two different threads by what % do you think public sector pay should be cut before you think it's enough?
I'd really like to know what you think instead of coming up with the same sound bite "This is clearly unsustainable."
I'm cynical about medical staff complaining about conditions in hospitals.
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I have asked you in two different threads by what % do you think public sector pay should be cut before you think it's enough?
I'd really like to know what you think instead of coming up with the same sound bite "This is clearly unsustainable."
HSE payments to GP’s have been cut, I think it was in the order of 8%, but average charges for private consultations have increased.
Do remember that the headline payment per patient that a GMS GP gets is only part of the package. They also get grants for equipment, staff paid for (once they hit certain volumes of patients on their list) and they get a state pension.
On top of that they all GP’s, both GMS and non GMS, get payments from the state for prenatal care, vaccination etc.
In 2011 25 GP’s received payments from the state of over €470’000. Their private practice income was on top of that.
It should be noted that this is gross business income out of which they have to pay their overheads but they can be minimised.
The cuts have been significant and have caused hardship for tens of thousands of people. That’s a fact.
The budget deficit is significant and the states wage bill is unsustainable. This is also a fact.
The question is how to we reconcile both issues. Cutting pay for middle income state employees removes money from the economy and would cause an increase in mortgage default etc.
Rather than cutting the pay of lower paid state employees I am of the opinion that people earning €40 an hour in overtime and people getting an average gross income from the state of €220’000 (on top of which they earn a private income) should be looked at first. In that context it angers me that they are untouchable because they are “Medical Professionals” and should be exempt from the usual value for money assessments that most employees and contractors are subject to.
The government, IMO, has currently an extremely strong hand when it comes to GPs and medical card payments - ask any GP and they'll tell you that their private patients are barely coming in (anyone see any non-medical card GPs operating?). The government could, IMO, quite easily announce it would be paying 30 euro per visit for medical card holders tomorrow with no additional payments and the GPs would have to accept it. They mightn't like it but they have little other income to play hardball.
terrysgirl33
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I remember talking to some nurses in the mid noughties who said they would gladly forgo their benchmarking if the money went into services, but they knew there was no chance of that. There is a lot of cynicism in the health service, not just outside it. I earn a good wage in a semi-state company and my take home income has gone down by about 25% in the last few years. It is needed, and I am not cribbing about it, but there is only so much you can give.
There are plenty of non GMS GP's as the number of medical card lists available are restricted. Non GMS GP's still get a substantial proportion of their income from the state through vaccines etc.
The point is that the money was taken from services to pay for the increases.
C
celebtastic
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And who pays for this wonderful largesse?
Either the private sector worker / entrepreneur, or future generations of Irish citizens through our already bloated government debt.
And other public sector employees (they pay income tax as well), and everyone who pays VAT and every other tax.
The vast bulk of the massive increases in funding for the health service over the last 15 years went on wage costs, through both pay increases well ahead of inflation and private sector wage inflation, and through a more than doubling of numbers employees (between 2000 and 2009 staff levels went up by 37% and in just 5 years, between 2005 and 2009, pay costs went up by 21%), plus the funded posts that are not direct employees.
We just came out bottom of the heap in the last OECD value for money audit.
We don’t have the aging population that most other developed countries have so our spending per head should be much lower than moth other countries. Despite this our staffing levels are around the OECD average (with nursing levels way above the average) and our costs, relative to average per capita income, are way above the average OECD level.
This Link and
this link give some detail.