Put patients first campaign

The Patients First Campaign is holding a public meeting at 7pm on this Tuesday in the South Court Hotel in Limerick to outline a variety of concerns ahead of Budget 2015.

Patients First is the umbrella group for a number of organisations, including the Irish Patients Association, Cystic Fibrosis Ireland, Patient Opinion, Irish Medical Organisation and Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.

Public representatives have been invited to this meeting, which will be attended by people from all over the Mid-West. This will allow them hear, first hand, from past patients, their families, together with the partner organisations in the campaign, what their experience of the health service is and what we expect, from the political system, with regard to developing and protecting our public health service over the next five years.

The core goals of the campaign are:

1. Budget must protect health service and patient care.

2. Independent, transparent, free, easily accessible, feedback mechanism that provides all patients, carers and family members the opportunity to share their healthcare story and engage with service providers.

3. Safe staffing based on patient dependency alone.

4. Legislated requirements to publicly display daily staffing levels vis-à-vis patient dependency requirements.

5. Legislated requirements to publicly consult and assess all cost improvement plans.

6. National long term strategy for patient involvement and engagement across Ireland.

“This public meeting will be attended by representatives, from all of the partner organisations, but will, most of all, be a forum at which the general public can outline their experience of, and expectations from, the health system that is an essential part of a civilised society,” said Stephen McMahon, of the Irish Patients Association and Campaign.

“This campaign is about patients, their families and friends. This campaign is for all of us who care about our public health service so that we can present, to our public representatives, a coherent demand for change, an end to cuts and contraction and a sustained commitment, from all political parties, to protecting, and developing, our health service so that it provides safe standards, safe care and safe staffing in all situations,” he added.