Analysing health and health policy

Tracing State Accountability for COVID-19: Representing Care within Ireland’s Response to the Pandemic

“…Despite the rather narrow understanding of care articulated by the Committee through its focus on the performance of formal health and social care systems, the acceptance of care failures and pressures initiated a re-evaluation of the marketised infrastructures shaping Ireland's health system. Ireland operates a strained two-tiered public/private health system which does not ensure broad equity of access (Dukelow and Considine, 2017;Edwards and Fernández, 2017). Around half of the population subscribes to private health insurance, with private provision often also taking place in public hospitals.…”

“…For example, among the hearing transcripts analysed, no state interlocutors mentioned Sláintecare in their interventions. Meanwhile, the Committee's solutions to address care failures fall back on neoliberal modes of governing (Edwards and Fernández, 2017); these include greater surveillance of nursing homes by the quasi-governmental health regulator HIQA (Health Information and Quality Authority), and the recommendation of a 'proper framework relating to the number and skills capacity of health care workers in nursing homes' (Houses of the Oireachtas, 2020: 14), These do not suggest radical care solutions, but rather increased governance and regulation of health and social care 'at a distance' (Edwards and Fernández, 2017).…”