Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has described the news that cancer patients in the public health system will not get access to certain new and potentially lifesaving\u00a0 drugs that those in private hospitals will get, as \u2018a new low\u2019. The Sinn F\u00e9in TD said it highlights the two-tier health system that has evolved under this Fine Gael government supported by Fianna F\u00e1il.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe news that private patients will have access to the cancer drugs pembrolizumab and nivolumab, which have been denied to patients in the public system, shows just how far and unfair the two tier healthcare has evolved under this Fine Gael government supported by Fianna F\u00e1il.<\/p>\n
\u201cPotentially lifesaving new drugs will now be available to private insurance holders in a handful of elite private hospitals. It is grossly unfair that pembrolizumab and nivolumab are being denied to patients in the public system while those with the means to pay can access them in private hospitals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis decision is a new low. It is an indictment of those politicians who are making decisions on the funding of our health system and clearly making a complete bags of it, as we can see with the enormous overruns of the National Children\u2019s Hospital.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Crowe continued:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe public drug approvals process has hit a brick wall over the past number of years as the HSE drugs budget for new medicines has been cut and completely underfunded.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is political decisions that have caused this. The underfunding of the HSE budget for new medicines means that the HSE can\u2019t approve drugs which it would normally fund and has funded in previous years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis decision completely undermines the public health service and makes a complete mockery of Sl\u00e1intecare, which focuses on the elimination of the subsidy for private healthcare.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe public health system is crumbling under this mismanagement and a lack of funding. The public-private divide in the health service is growing under this Fine Gael government with the full support of Fianna F\u00e1il.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis unfairness also has echoes of the recent revelations that women in the public system are left waiting for up to 33 weeks for results of smear tests, while those who can pay get their results back in 3 weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis latest decision is a new low and is the direct outworking of a government policy that promotes wealth and elites over the public good.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has described the news that cancer patients in the public health system will not get access to certain new and potentially lifesaving\u00a0 drugs that those in private hospitals will get, as \u2018a new low\u2019. The Sinn F\u00e9in TD said it highlights the two-tier health system that has evolved under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,166],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-hse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3780,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779\/revisions\/3780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}