Medical schools: The Minister for Health Mary Harney has said concrete proposals to increase the number of training places for student doctors will appear in the upcoming Budget estimates. The number of places for Irish medical students may be doubled, it is believed.
In an interview with The Irish Times to mark the end of her first year in office, Ms Harney has also confirmed she is in favour of introducing graduate entry to medical schools in the Republic.
"We need graduate entry so that everyone is not making a decision to enter medical school at 17," she said. However, she would not be drawn on whether graduate entry programmes would be located in existing medical schools or whether a standalone graduate medical school, such as that proposed by Limerick University, would be approved.
Describing the common contract held by hospital consultants as "a very confused contract", the Minister said she would be anxious to negotiate a new contract "that is less rigid and that monitors what we are getting in the public system, one that is measurable in terms of paying X and getting Y". She wants to see hospital consultants working in teams in each speciality and is keen to see a full-time public hospital work option in the new contract.
And while she wants to negotiate a new General Medical Services contract with GPs who look after patients with medical cards, Ms Harney is adamant that family doctors will not benefit from benchmarking if the Irish Medical Organisation does not agree to implement doctor-only medical cards. She said that if agreement was not reached by the end of this week, other ways of funding the initiative would be found. She said that while she was committed to the primary care strategy, it would not be possible to fund all its elements. "But in disadvantaged areas, I am particularly concerned to ensure that we fund general practice."
One of her priorities for the coming year will be improved care for older people. She wants to change what she referred to as "unrealistic thresholds" to qualify for nursing home subsidies. "These haven't been changed since 1993 so that anyone with a home valued above €95,000 cannot qualify for a subsidy... we need to relate subsidies to the person's level of dependency," she said.
Ms Harney also hinted that, in order to promote the greater use of cheaper, generic drugs in an effort to control the State's drug bill, a system may be introduced where the State pays for the generic drug. A patient wishing to have the branded version would then pay the balance of the cost to the pharmacist.