An intolerable failure to treat our children

GEARÓIDÍN Burke has been waiting 18 months to see a specialist in Crumlin Hospital to confirm a diagnosis of what is believed to be rheumatoid arthritis. At the age of 15, when she should be able to enjoy life with her friends, she instead suffers unnecessary pain. And she is not alone, as she is just one of the 437 children in similar plight.

On a national level, 11,002 children have been waiting for 18 months or longer to see consultants, and the total number on all lists has risen by an astonishing 52% since 2015, to over 50,000. We accept that some will have minor conditions, but for others such as Gearóidín, every day brings more worry and more pain. As was the case with her sister Frances, who suffers from the same condition, a continued failure to intervene might very well see her condition worsen.

We are told that billions in extra funding have been poured into the health service, so why do all the problems in the HSE seem only to get worse instead of better? Successive ministers for health appear incapable of deciding where to even start to reform the bloated HSE and its Byzantine systems and procedures.

Clearly, more consultants are needed, and that would be a good place to start, because diagnosing a condition is the gateway to treatment – as Gearóidín’s mother says, once you get past that first barrier, the care is excellent.

Running the HSE in a perpetual state of crisis management will never solve the problems, because it comes down to a matter of which fire to extinguish first.

The entire edifice must be looked at and reformed, and the focus returned to patients, especially the young and the old, who are the most vulnerable and, on the evidence, the most inconsequential to those running the system.