Six months after its establishment, the Health Service Executive (HSE) has finally found a permanent chief executive, writes Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent.
The €400,000-a-year job was accepted yesterday by Leitrim-born consultant paediatrician Prof Brendan Drumm (48) two weeks after he refused to sign a contract for the job which the HSE was offering him. He was following in the footsteps of Prof Aidan Halligan, who last year decided not to accept the post at the last minute.
Last week Prof Drumm was contacted again, however, and a deal was reached last night which will see him taking up the job on August 15th. He will be responsible for the day-to-day running of the health service, its 98,000 staff and its €11 billion annual budget.
Prof Drumm has said his priority will be reform. He will bring a special "cabinet" of six with him to spearhead reforms, and has €1 million a year to spend on consultancy.
Two weeks ago when talks on his contract broke down he said there had been a history of the health service "funding what's dysfunctional and never providing funding for what's actually efficient. We tend to throw money at problems when they arise, mainly for political reasons to sort them out."
The stumbling block when talks with him broke down this month was the failure of the State to agree to fund a consultant post for him to return to at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin after he served his five-year term as chief of the HSE. He is also currently professor of paediatrics at UCD.
Last night chairman of the HSE board Liam Downey said: "With further discussion and a proposal from UCD, a solution to the issue that was outstanding in recent discussions emerged."
Minister for Health Mary Harney said she looked forward to Prof Drumm delivering "the radical reform" the health system needs.