Le système de santé irlandais de l'entre-deux guerres

Comparative perspectives on inter-war Irish health systems: medical reform, fee payment and social class

Lecture by Dr Seán Lucey (University of Liverpool)

The third seminar of the Spring Term will take place in WF38 on the first floor of the Medical School at 5.30pm

Thursday 18th February

College of Medical and Dental Sciences
Institute of Applied Health Research

This paper concentrates on hospital provision in inter-war Ireland. It compares patient fee-payment in voluntary and local authority hospitals in the two states on the newly partitioned island: Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State. Developing on Paul Bridgen’s work on the importance of middle-class support for the introduction of the National Health Service in Britain, the paper argues that the nature of patient fee-payment in the two Irish states is central to understanding the long-term development of each country’s health system. Cross-class support for universal health in Northern Ireland, based on increased financial demands placed on both the working and middle classes for hospital care, eased the eventual introduction of the NHS in the region. Contrastingly, in independent Ireland universal health care was never introduced. Traditional historiographical interpretations have viewed opposition from the medical profession and religious authorities, combined with a lack of political support, as the major factors that prevented the introduction of a NHS-type system in independent Ireland. This paper, however, argues that independent Ireland’s strongly developed private hospital sector, which substantially contrasted with Northern Ireland’s experience, led to less support from the middle classes for universalism. Overall, this paper contributes to wider debates about comparative welfare states, especially demonstrating that Peter Baldwin’s thesis, which argues that cross-class interests were central to the success or failure of universalist systems, is demonstrated in the differing experiences on both sides of the Irish border

ALL ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND

Details of future seminars are available from: Dr Vanessa Heggie, Institute of Applied Health Research, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT.
Email: v.heggie@bham.ac.uk Tel: 0121 415 8184