Our trolley crisis is the big issue- not the weather!

SNOW, snow, snow - where to go? I for one am getting a little tired of all this harsh weather. It’s not good for business either !

I love a Bank Holiday weekend just like everyone else, but when the weather forecast is so glum, it makes you want to stay at home and not wander out at all.

I am not blaming the forecasters but, as I have said before, we can’t close down the whole country whenever the weather turns arctic.

All the overseas visitors are baffled at our fear of the prospect of our inclement weather. Really and truly we are going to have to get over it.

We need to be practical. Work days and school days have been lost due to overzealous forecasts. Just because it’s not normal weather for this time of year doesn’t mean we have to shut ourselves away from the elements.

Fair play to Simon Harris for staying at home with the trolley crisis in our hospitals at an all-time high. The weather was not on his mind. I know we need to represent Ireland Inc and that last weekend was best time to do it, as everyone wants to be Irish on St Patrick’s Day.

The expenditure sending our ministers and Taoiseach abroad is probably a drop in the ocean where the HSE budget is concerned.

However, we really need to address our growing hospital crisis. Each year it is getting worse, despite the budget increases.

Each minister for health promises the moon and the stars, but the position is truly a ‘poisoned chalice’. Is nobody able to step in and ‘fix’ our ailing health service? Is there nowhere to turn to sort this situation out for our citizens once and for all?

What I fail to understand is how the private hospital sector is able to run not only their Accident & Emergency departments, but their hospitals with such efficiency on set budgets. Nobody is pouring continuous funds into their coffers. They are run like businesses and rightly so.

I am lucky insofar as I have had a VHI health insurance plan since I earned my first pay packet.

My parents had us all on their policy until then and insisted that we all continued cover, paying for ourselves, and rightly so.

I have had a lot of health issues, especially in the past five years, having had knee and hip replacements. I will make whatever financial sacrifices necessary to maintain my cover, for the most part because I am self-employed.

I am not always able to take time off to have procedures when they are needed, and as appointments and hospital places take time anyway, it allows me plenty of notice to organise someone to take my place in the restaurant while I am unable to work until I get back on my feet.

I have sympathy for everyone on trolleys and on waiting lists, particularly children and the elderly and infirm.

I understand that it is not always possible to go to your GP first, and that sometimes we need to go straight to a hospital.

IHAVE had occasion to be in some of our A&E departments over the years with my children and with friends, and in particular with an old friend.

Sadly she passed away earlier this year in her 92nd year, but every time she had a fall, she ended up on a trolley long before she was ever allocated a bed.

Once, early last year, she had been in a cubicle for days, and to be fair, the medical team were doing their best.

I was her advocate, fighting her corner and using her great age to her advantage where the allocation of a bed was concerned. Sometimes it worked, and other times they were just too busy.

There were the very young and old on trolleys during those times too.

It’s a terribly sad situation in this prosperous country of ours. We all deserve the best. However, we need intervention to help fix this awful crisis — and soon.

I am in business so I know only too well how hard it is to operate with budget constraints, but our business does not have a bearing on life and death.

When things do not go according to plan A in our business, there is always a plan B. Will we ever have an efficient health service? Surely with our ageing population it’s everyone’s interest to get it right once and for all.

I just wish I could wave a magic wand and make this issue better.