Madam, - In the context of my letter of March 14th, I spotted an interesting headline in the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper here yesterday. It read, "2,900 Euro für jeden Bürger" and described how €2,900 per head per year is spent on healthcare in Germany. Now if you take the €10.5 billion spent by our Government and add in our VHI and BUPA contributions, you come up with an almost identical cost per head.
So, for their €2,900 a year, the Germans get a Mercedes while, for the same money, we get a Trabi. One concludes that, whatever the reason for the difference in quality between the German healthcare system and ours, it's not money. I believe I know where the difference lies, but no one in the healthcare sector in Ireland seems to be interested. - Yours, etc.,
Dr NORMAN STEWART, Steinebach, Germany.