HSE’S staff must not be frozen out

SIMON Hamilton has warned the HSE faces a “challenging” week following the worst snow storms in three decades.

The Health Minister is right and due to his Government’s failure to properly resource our hospitals over the past seven years they are not in a fit state to meet everyday challenges never mind ones cause by extreme weather.

No doubt the big freeze contributed to a big rise in overcrowding yesterday with 664 patients denied access to beds.

But there were no storms on January 3 last year when a record 677 waited on trolleys.

While Ireland is slowly recovering there are still huge swathes of the country cut off and facing more misery in the coming weeks.

There are water shortages and electricity outages and some people in isolated areas are still unable to leave their homes.

Overall, the country has responded well to a very rare weather event that has seen a surge in neighbourly goodwill and great work from our emergency services and Defence Forces.

But no amount of spin can hide the fact our health services are on the brink of collapse.

The powerful message from psychiatric nurse Aoife Butler who reports that half her colleagues are planning to leave the country in the next 12 months must be heeded.

Medical staff must be get decent working conditions or Ireland will face a permanent crisis regardless of the weather.