Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

I spent the last week of June in Cavan General Hospital, suffering from a nagging chest infection which two doses of anti-biotics had failed to dislocate. I found the experience pleasant, to the extent that a stay in hospital can be a pleasant experience. The worst thing about it was the tedium. I want to thank all the staff there for their kindness and professionalism. If I try to list everyone I know I’ll end up forgetting someone; and then again there are some whose names I never learned.

I want to thank Dr Naqvi and his team; Dr Noor; a really nice doctor from Sudan whom I met on my arrival in A & E; Louise and Elaine in physiotherapy (not forgetting Louise from Cavan), and all the nurses who had the misfortunate to have to deal with me including Rosemary, Linda, Lisa, Shirley, Trish, Cathy and the night nurses who came so quickly to my assistance when I awoke with a coughing spasm one morning at four o’clock, Brenda, Jasmi from Kerala and Reuben from Tamil Nadu who looked after me on my first night there. There was also a very nice nurse whose name I forget from Dublin who noticed from my accent that I had spent some years in the fair city. I was impressed by the food. “Hospital food” is almost an urban myth, but I put on weight while a patient and one of the highlights of my day was meal times.

I had a bed almost from the moment I was admitted, and was thus saved the indignity of spending time of a trolley. I have read of the experience of poor Gerry Brady from Lough Gowna who spent a week on a trolley following admission for Deep Vein Thrombosis. He also mentioned how some patients admitted for chest infections never saw a bed at all. This just is not good enough. We are one of the richest countries in the world, and yet parts of our health care system belong to the third world. In a country in the developing world the lack of adequate health care provision is due fundamentally to poverty. Governments have not got the funds, which may have to go to pay off loans to fat cat bankers. They try to provide as good a level of health care as they can. They haven’t a choice. We however do not face such financial constraints; the fact that people spend time on trolleys is because those managing the health service have made the choice that this is acceptable. These people are more interested in appealing to a phantom constituency of tax payers who are, in their opinion, never ill and if they are, have private health insurance. The chief protagonists in this farce are the head of the Health Service Executive, Professor Chicken Drumstick and the Minister for Health, Mary “Fatso” Harney. The Tee-shock is obviously a sympathiser too. His response to those suffering unnecessarily in the Irish health-care system was to reappoint Fatso to the very same position as Minister for Health. This was a snub to the Irish people, but one which they deserve if they continue to vote for him. (Personally I believe both Fatso and Professor Drumstick should be sacked. They inhabit a dangerous fantasy world. I wouldn’t give them a place on a FAS Community Employment Scheme.)

The response of the HSE to the case of Gerry Brady was typical. There is an underlying message in its press release, emanating from the policies of Professor Drum-stick and Minister Fatso. It never comments on individual cases, because it doesn’t recognise individuals in the system, only an undifferentiated mass of scum – the great unwashed.

According to Professor Drumstick the problems of the Irish healthcare system are caused by – sick people. If sick people (who are poor or old and who do not belong to the highest social or income levels) were removed from the equation the health-care system would be fine, the best in Europe probably. There are of course bleeding-heart types who say that the health-care system is there to deal with sick people. Nonsense! The health-care system in Ireland exists to provide nice, cushy, over-paid, super-annuated positions for senior managers and those with inflated job titles.

As the press release in response to Gerry Brady made clear the situation is made even worse by the fact that sick people don’t get sick at the one time, but more or less whenever they like. This is most unfair to healthy tax payers.  Surely sick people could co-ordinate their illnesses, say, when they congregate at dole offices. One solution might be to threaten reduction of benefits for those who do not fall ill collectively and insist on pursuing costly individualistic health problems. The HSE is actively seeking ways to combat this and may very well appoint a group of highly-paid consultants from one of the world’s top three companies to come up with solutions.

Trolleys are uncomfortable, but if people thought that they were likely to spend days on a narrow trolley in a corridor they would think twice about troubling the health-care system. What’s more, very few people would stay on a trolley. And the problem of sick people staying too long in beds has already been highlighted by Professor Drumstick.