A mortifying failure

THE Government can pretend all it likes that the health service is undergoing real and valuable reform, but the statistics say otherwise. Not only have waiting lists reached an unprecedented crisis, with 686,997 people now awaiting consultations or procedures, it has emerged that, in the past year, almost 6,000 people over the age 75 each spent more than 24 hours waiting to be seen in emergency departments across 25 hospitals nationwide.

How can any government stand over that record? We have in the past given Simon Harris the benefit of the doubt as a young, energetic Health Minister charged with slowing down an institutional juggernaut and changing its course. He talks a good game but we need more than words, especially when all he could do this week was express his personal disappointment at the waiting list crisis.

Disappointed? He should be mortified that this is happening on his watch, and doubly mortified by Fianna Fáil health spokesman Billy Kelleher’s revelation of the scandal of over-75s marooned on trolleys waiting for proper beds.

With the homelessness crisis also still no closer to being properly addressed, never mind solved, this Government is living on borrowed time.

It really must get its act together and show it is working hard to make daily life better for children without homes, and the elderly who need treatment.