As you might have heard last week it emerged that the HSE has awarded a €1 million consultancy project to help redesign and deconstruct itself.
Is the HSE going through a mid-life crisis already? Wait a second. We thought it only came into existence a few years back.
Next thing you know it’ll be driving around in sportscars, wearing fancy suits - maybe just like its top brass, who are looking forward to a €1.4 million bonus windfall.
Just so you know the top man Professor Brendan Drumm, in 2007, received a bonus of €80,000 on top of his salary of around €370,000.
You do realise that we, the taxpayer, pay these bonuses. And this year we are being asked to pay it again at a time when the country’s leaders continue to harp on about belt-tightening.
Even Minister Mary Harney, where the buck ultimately stops, is not totally to blame. She has battled with a behemoth of bureaucracy that seems to be more interested in employing layer upon layers of middle-management than actually serving the taxpayer that pays for it.
Just to put all this into context. The HSE are paying consultants €1 million at a time when the children’s ward in UHG is closed down due to Legionnaire’s disease being found in the water. The HSE are paying consultants €1 million not too long after seven patients had to be treated in the UHG waiting hall due to massive overcrowding.
Maybe it’s just me, but I thought the HSE was in place to provide first class health care to the taxpayer - a taxpayer that pays shedloads of money. But here we are paying millions in yet more consultancy fees. If it wasn’t so disgusting you’d almost laugh.
