Re: Bringing care back home, July 17th
Dear Sir,
If I could afford to be treated in my own home instead of going to hospital, that's what I would do. What a luxury!
But is it good use of public funds to pay a Hospital in the Home company to send doctors and nurses into patients' homes? Does this scheme really prevent hospital admissions?
Unfortunately, the fact that 1,000 patients are treated at home is no guarantee that 1,000 hospital admissions (or even a fraction of this number) have been avoided.
If the company selects the most severely ill patients, hospital admissions should be reduced.
But there will be a natural tendency, on patient safety and cost grounds, to select patients who are less ill, and who might well have been treated by their GP at home anyway. Patient satisfaction with this new service will be very high but there is no change in hospital admissions.
If the non-clinical managers who monitor the contracts don't realise this, we will end up with hospital budgets being squeezed to pay for these new services even though the burden on the hospitals has not changed.
Dr Christine O'Malley,
Consultant Geriatrician,
Nenagh General Hospital,
Co Tipperary
Re: Screening alone won't keep a heart healthy, July 3rd
Dear Sir,
It says in your article that there are minor side effects in relation to the use of statins and most people would not have to cease taking them.
I would like to bring to your attention the following:
My late mother, at the age of 77, was prescribed Lipitor, her cholesterol was only slightly elevated, 20mg daily and released from hospital with no side effects warning.
Within four weeks, she had died from Rhabdomyolysis, a rare but well-documented side effect of Lipitor, a statin.
This tragic unnecessary death could have been avoided by close monitoring of my mother.
The medical profession need to be more vigilant when prescribing statins and make patients fully aware of possible side effects.
It is known that between three to four people in every 100,000 experience some reaction to Lipitor. There were over 500,000 prescriptions of this drug issued last year in Ireland.
Claire Egan,
Dublin 16
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