Sara Burke – Irish Apartheid: Healthcare Inequality in Ireland
I think I’ve just found the book I’ll be taking with me for my two weeks off. Sara Burke is a freelance journalist, broadcaster and health policy analyst. She is currently doing a PhD in health policy in Trinity College Dublin, and has a weekly radio slot on RTÉ’s Drivetime programme.
Sara authored Irish Apartheid – Healthcare Inequality in Ireland which is published by New Island. It’s a damning indictment on the failures of successive governments and Health Dept Ministers to formulate and implement adequate and appropriate public healthcare policy in Ireland. Instead, our government favours of a two-tier private/public system of cooperation which, as ever, is biased towards big business, private equity and those who can afford private health insurance.
To get a flavour of what she’s talking about, here’s a snippet of an article Sara wrote for the Irish Times last Saturday: -
“IN THE decade when we had most, when the economy was booming, when we quadrupled our spending on public health services, Ireland’s political leaders failed spectacularly to reform the fundamental injustice that is at the core of the Irish health system.
For the past 10 years, an awful lot of time, energy and money went into “reforming” and restructuring the health services, nonetheless politicians and health planners choose to retain the two-tiered system of public hospital care, which gives private patients privileges over public patients.
History has taught us clearly that inequality is core to the Irish model of healthcare. It has also showed us that our unique, complicated, unfair system of care results in unequal experiences and outcomes for different sections of the population, benefiting those with more money over those with less.” – Sara Burke – Irish Times – Sat 27/06/09
Uniquely, Sara also goes into the history of the Irish healthcare system and helps us fully understand how we’ve arrived at the place we’re at with the massive, malformed and unwieldy HSE. “Irish apartheid” comes highly recommended from several quarters and has been widely regarded as -
‘Forensic, rigorous, compelling…essential reading for anyone who cares about what’s gone wrong with Irish health policy and how we can put it right.’ Fintan O’Toole
I shall report back soon with my own recommendation or otherwise . . . Stay tuned.
