We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
THE MAN DUE to head a new task force on Ireland’s emergency departments has quit.
Dr Tony O’Connell, who was also the HSE’s head of acute hospitals, will return to Australia.
In a statement this evening, the HSE said that Dr O’Connell’s wife has been offered an academic role.
“Dr. Tony O’Connell, National Director for Acute Hospitals of the Health Services Executive (HSE), has tendered his resignation to the Director General of the HSE.
“He will return to Australia in the next number of weeks to join his wife who has recently been offered an academic position in an Australian university.
“Dr O’Connell’s wife, who was in Ireland up to recently, will take up her post next Monday.”
Dr O’Connell was appointed last May.
The resignation comes as hospital overcrowding and the number of people on trolleys reached record levels.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
And the cluster fcuk rumbles on
Smart man.
I wonder how it would be remotely possible to entice any nurses or experienced junior doctors to work in Ireland for these reasons:-
1. The working conditions are now truly appalling.
2. Rent and mortgage repayments are unaffordable.
3. USC hits too severely at lower salary levels.
4. Work hours are long and difficult.
5. Advancement is more restricted in Ireland than elsewhere.
6. dealing with HSE bureaucratic requirements is hugely inhibiting and frustrating.
Unless there are strong family ties, Ireland’s situation is terribly unattractive to medical staff.
@Anthony I agree with everything you’ve said, it’d be difficult not to. We have an appalling Health System that shows no signs of getting better, the staff working within it are doing so in conditions we expect to see in third world countries. They and their patients deserve our respect, we deserve better.
But this shouldn’t be such a surprise. It’s only a few years ago that our government began to paint those staff as the bad guys, they imposed levies upon them, punished them for working in their chosen profession, cut their wages and cut their numbers. And what did those staff do? At every step they warned that this would happen, they warned that healthcare professionals would leave for countries with better paying, less stressful jobs where they are appreciated. There was a time when we exported our doctors to third world countries, now we recruit them there, and even at that we can’t convince enough to work in Ireland. We’ve had to ensure nurses take on more roles over the past few years, but with less nurses and doctors and increased workloads the system strains until it breaks. And then we wonder why, where we went wrong. Yes the HSE is top heavy, it has managers who can’t manage, most of them are unqualified, less than 20% of it’s accountants are qualified accountants, Hypocrisy and bullying are rife. When it comes to it’s frontline staff most have at least one degree, often more. These people warned this would happen, the consultants warned about it, the nurses warned, Hell just about everyone warned. But nobody listened. A few years ago most preferred to lay into them and blame them for having jobs and pensions, ignoring how they earned them. I’m pretty sure if they went on strike today, took action for their patients, the government spin doctors would start planting stories about them in the media and within days public opinion would quickly turn against healthcare workers again. Until the next time.
No hanging round with that decision then……
Maybe the good doctor watched the minister for finance on the 6 of clock news with a big smile on his face telling the country how great our finances are now, and the good doctor just has to ask the hospital’s what is really happening to this country of ours.
Pretty obvious what spin is.
Deserting the sinking ship. Did he have no contract? More Government blunders. Where is Leo? Time for the Government to go now.
If the boot was on the other foot and a married person was due to take up the position here, everybody would be in favour of the spouse living and getting work here as well, even if that would mean, that they would have to leave their work contract in the other country …. Nobody would argue with that, why do you argue if the person follows the spouse from here to another country? At least, we are not liable to paying him severance fees since he’s leaving – chance to find somebody else, perhaps for less money …
Wonder did Leo have him sign a confidentiality clause, Bon voyage Tony.
He’s probably sick of the bureaucracy of it all and also probably sick of banging his head of brick walls trying to get upper management to do anything different than hide in there offices spending as much allowances as possible on themselves , giving him the run around. While seeing how much money is been wasted on them, while the front line staff take all the flack and the cutbacks
I have to agree to some extent, too much poor management, you just cannot expect hospitals built so long ago to be able to cope now, time money was spent directly on the services rather than enormous salaries on the few. Consultancy reports before any brick is laid for the childrens hospital as one example.
Riiiiight…
FFS people are in pain, people are dying on trolleys around the country. The staff are maxed out! Throw money it !! Hire Nurses Hire Doctors. Don’t spend it on task forces, and external consultant fees. When Tony gets to Oz and joins another hospital (which he will) get him to send some of our own talent back home
Election please
He has seen the task ahead and the limitations /obstacles ahead.
Can’t make a silk purse out of a sows ear.
Altough I have no time for varadkar I do feel sorry for his position. Health is a poison chalice since long before harney.
Probably could not get agreement on anything
Enda Kenny rightly Fooked Leo Varadkars future political career when he made him minister for health…
Nice one Enda…
Just when the Conveney’s are making hay with the beef!
I believe there are in excess of 600 people employed by the HSE who are on in excess of €100,000 per year with NO medical background
There is also a bunch of people currently employed and paid by the HSE in the former National Treatment Purchase Fund.
This is a government department with no function role or funding but the former employees remain in situ with nothing to do INCLUDING not answering the phone because the former 1890 lo-call number has been withdrawn.
Thankfully I’m not writing this from a hospital A&E department on a trolley.
These sentiments would be most detrimental to my blood pressure if I were.
And in a prominent Dublin maternity hospital which is bursting at the seams has a Head Porter
The Head Porter is managed by TWO senior managers
Their sole responsibility is managing him
And everyone knows he’s the one REALLY in charge
Money well spent
I don’t blame Leo James or even Mary Harney (remember her)
It’s the prevailing culture in this country that depending on your connections and pull you get to very little for quite a lot
The Head Porter is managed by TWO senior managers
Their sole responsibility is managing him,
Yes, that is what happens when we allow CP common purpose to move in and manage . They operate outside authority, but they are a Trojan Horse that few seem to know anything about.
CP Ireland exposed is there for all to see. Its a fascinating study and shows where so much of tak payers money is going and who runs the show in Ireland.
It worked a charm in UK and is now here.
http://www.cpexposed.com/sites/default/files/documents/CP_Ireland_wwwpoliticsie_post_0.pdf
Which hospital is this in, Tom?
Our Lady Of Lourdes, Drogheda, this evening had 67 patients awaiting admission. This hospital which is, as close as makes no difference, the only hospital in the ‘North East’ of Ireland. It’s a catastrophe.
It stopped being funny years ago. No health service is not a poison chalice .the ministers given the job are obviously not up to the job that’s the problem. Its not poison chalice in other countries just obviously competent people running it. Its almost as if there’s some game being played to destroy the health services and then what you know private corporation will come in and save the day. Leo obviously is not up to the job because its getting worse under him.
“THE MAN DUE to head a new task force on Ireland’s emergency departments has quit.”
Enough said.
About 50,000 overpaid, managerial idlers and assorted hangers-on, should be forced to quit too.!
We need a Maggie Thatcher to wipe out these tempestuous public service unions, and destroy the crony consensus culture, that leaves cancer patients who cannot afford private care waiting for up to two years to get an MRI scan.
Health Service Executive=Irish Water.!
It never ends.
Come on journal. It must be time for another lovely article about cuddly kissable Leo?
This guy didn’t quit because he couldn’t rise to the challenge of the job
It’s just he couldn’t get parking in the vast car park of the administration headquarters
Rows and rows of cars driven by administration executives and cronies which is the core of the problem
He may of reconsidered his position if they had given him a chauffeur to drop him near his office
I must stress this is not a slight at him personally.
But merely an observation or far too many chiefs and a couple of injuns
Reminds of the dude who bailed out on cork city council heading up the city of culture project. He just told it like it was tho and didn’t blame the wife
Just get on with implementing the recommendations of the first task force on emergency departments….Ireland has had enough of this kind of subterfuge.
It’s a pity we were in such a hurry to leave the UK. At least they have something resembling a health service! No overpaid Consultants and no-one has to worry whether they spend money on food or GP fees.
But we will all be patting ourselves on the back on 2016 about how we ‘escaped’ from the clutches of the ‘Evil Empire’.
Makes us all warm and fuzzy inside!
Jaysus lads , he’s just one guy . He can be replaced with someone else ffs. Walls aren’t falling down now he’s gone . It doesn’t mean the project is not going ahead lol
have your say