Wilful disregard for ill patients of our dying health system
TODAY, we reveal that Health Minister Stephen Donnelly and the board of the HSE knew that there would be a €2bn shortfall in funding when they signed off on the 2023 National Service Plan, which, incidentally, was tardily agreed in March, three months into the year. This follows on from our previous revelation that a board member resigned in protest at this sleight of hand.
It shows in microcosm the dysfunction at the heart of the health service, or at least at the heart of the administration of it. The Department of Health and the HSE seem completely incapable of making a round peg fit a round hole.
What should be a simple case of costing services and delivering care has become a labyrinth of red tape and email negotiations. The idea that the board would be railroaded, as one member suggested this week, is remarkable. In the context of what we’re seeing in lax corporate governance in RTÉ, this strong-arming of the HSE board by the department seems particularly bizarre. When the Department of Health launches vote-winning policy initiatives, such as State-funded IVF treatment, free contraception, and the expansion of free GP care for children, it and the Minister are quick to claim credit.
Behind the scenes, though, they are simply failing in their stewardship and duty of care to the patients of Ireland when they allow a document to be in the first instance created, and in the second instance published, in the full knowledge that what is contained within is nothing short of a fiction. This is made even worse by the fact that when the Irish Mail On Sunday set about reporting the story and first went to the Minister, it was only then he told Cabinet colleagues about this black hole.
There is something rotten in the Department of Health. There is something rotten for many years in the HSE, continuing to ignore the problems and continuing to fail to tackle the problems, wherever they are.
At this stage it is more than cowardice and more than negligence. It is close to wilful disregard for sick patients of the island’s creaking health system.
As the weather turns, and winter looms on the horizon with its usual toll of respiratory illness, we will note with interest the ready excuses that will be made by this Minister and his department when the beds and trolley crises likely reach record levels.
PAVEE POINT HAS TO SPEAK OUT
THIS newspaper fully accepts the stereotype that all Travellers are inherently violent or criminal is wrong and belongs to a different age. We fully accept that Travellers are in many ways disadvantaged. A child of that ethnicity does not have the same opportunities enjoyed by a child in the settled community, and Traveller suicide rates are far above the average in the general population.
However, incidents of violence that occurred in Galway in the past week deserve condemnation from Pavee Point, which was set up to represent the viewpoints of the Traveller community.
Its failure to be proactive in doing so allows the impression that there isn’t a reputable face of that community.
At a difficult time, when a minority of the minority is giving the community seriously bad PR, that is when leaders should stand up and speak on behalf of law-abiding Travellers who don’t want to see scenes like this splashed all over newspapers and social media.
Leadership is about speaking up even when it is uncomfortable to do so, and we suggest in the future that Pavee Point takes this into consideration.