Doing the paper rounds

Dara Gantly looks as what we have learned from Prof Brendan Drumm’s recent media interviews

Back in 2005, at his first press briefing as HSE CEO, Prof Brendan Drumm expressed surprise when he entered the meeting room in Cherry Orchard Hospital and saw the number of journalists present. He got used to the media scrum quickly enough, and developed the necessary mechanisms to cope with the barrage of criticism – often personal – that has come his way over the past five years, on hospital downgrades, misdiagnoses and controversial bonuses.
As he heads towards the exit of Dr Steevens’ Hospital for the last time, Prof Drumm sat down individually with a select group of journalists for a series of exit interviews. IMT, as you have probably already gathered, was among those granted a privileged slot, and the first part of our extensive interview appears in this week’s issue. But what of the others?
Prof Drumm told The Irish Times last Saturday (July 24) that there was never a day when he regretted taking on what many would regard as a nightmare job. He said his biggest regret, though, was not getting an IT system in place across the health sector, one in which patients would have a unique patient identifier.
In the Sunday Tribune, we discovered that Drumm has been “amazed” at Minister Mary Harney’s capacity to continue down the road of reform. He believes the State would have ended up giving empty hospital beds to NAMA if he had proceeded with “populist” calls to provide 3,000 extra hospital beds. He also envisages a time when he will no longer require private health insurance.
The CEO also disturbed his Sunday lunch by visiting RTÉ’s Radio Centre for an interview with Richard Crowley on the This Week programme. He told listeners that it would be difficult for cuts of up to €700 million this year not to impact on frontline services if there was an unwillingness to make significant changes in how services were delivered.
At that first press conference in 2005, Prof Drumm brought along a painting that had just been presented to him by a young female patient at the hospital’s acute detox centre. The then new CEO described the picture of a pathway through an orchard, and said it was an example of how good the health service can be in terms of giving patients a real sense of ‘involvement’.
An accompanying text to the painting, stating that this journey could not be achieved alone, was as symbolic for Prof Drumm as it was for the patient, he indicated.
On that day, he said that if he had to pick a mantra, it would probably be that “everything should be done for the patient”. While readers may differ on his ultimate achievements, it should be acknowledged that he certainly kept this mantra in mind throughout these past five years.