<<Much of it is the fault of a generation of maladministration and
political misgovernance, but also much of it is the fault of our
profession, time to change.>>
True up to a point and yet those of us who have made major efforts to see
patients at times convenient to them, not keep them waiting, give them
extra time for difficult problems and constantly upgrade our skills and
knowledge so that we CAN offer them some useful treatment most times have
seen the burden of work slowly increase until it becomes unbearable. I
and some like-minded friends and colleagues noted the appearance of
negative incentives two or three years ago and at that point the system
starts breaking down.
What negative incentives do you mean, you ask?
Well if you devote much of your time to tending the sick --as opposed to
noddy health promotion stuff of dubious value (apart from financial)---you
find you need more time, you acquire more patients with complex diseases,
you need to spend more time and money training yourself to handle such,
you perhaps need more equipment and maybe more staff hours, you have less
time and energy for the stuff that makes extra money and after a while you
find that giving better care costs you.
Declan
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