The Health of the Nation - Irish Healthcare 1957-2007

New hardback, first edition, 250 pages.In deciding to publish a book to coincide with their soth year, Vhi Healthcare chose not to commission a straight history of the company, deciding that a broader treatment of the health service in Ireland was merited. The result is The Health of the Nation. Written by Padraig O'Morain, formerly the social affairs corres- pondent of The Irish Times, it is an authoritative and independent overview of the health service in the Republic of Ireland over the last 50 years.

It opens with a survey of how we got from there to here. In a sense, the opening chapter is a summary treatment of all the concerns addressed in the book. The subsequent chapters look at individual topics in greater detail: hospi- tals, care in the community, mental health care, disability, health administration, professionals and administrators, finance, and the succession of controversies that have dogged the system and shaped public perceptions of it. It also looks at how the health of the Irish population has changed over the last so years with the decline in traditional killing diseases such as TB, but the growth of heart disease and cancer, the challenges of AIDS and the emergence of obesity as a feature of major health concern. A section is dedicated to Vhi Healthcare and key developments and milestones within the Irish private health insurance market, before the book concludes with a look to the future.