HSE must function properly, the country deserves better

AT THE start of the pandemic, there was a sense of purpose and a sense of hope and we all accepted the first lockdown to ensure the health service was not overwhelmed. Two years later, we have a right to expect that this very same health service is properly staffed, properly managed and properly funded.

The pandemic, we are told, is now endemic. While the virus continues to infect large numbers, fewer people are in intensive care and the death toll has been reduced. What that should not distract us from, though, is the fact that problems within the HSE are endemic too.

Last week, we revealed that technology used in Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital is so outdated, it is having an impact on the diagnosis and care of those with hearing impairment, epilepsy and certain cancers.

In Kerry, a lack of oversight led to 227 children attending the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service being exposed to significant risk of harm thanks to the incorrect prescription of potent drugs.

We still don’t have enough hospital beds, leading to the inevitable and entirely predictable annual trolley emergency, while hundreds of thousands are on waiting lists to be seen for treatable conditions.

Today, we warn of another looming crisis. Underpaid and poorly resourced, nurses are under pressure as never before.

The most recent survey shows a staggering 68% of them are considering quitting, with one-quarter saying they are likely or very likely to do so within a year. Instead of recruiting the frontline staff we need – hospital doctors, nurses and community GPs – we have tiers of management and management consultants who seem unable to grasp the scope of the basic obstacles in the way of proper functioning of the health service.

These are simply identified. Pay for nurses must increase and the entire infrastructure of the HSE must be audited and upgraded to the level we expect in the healthcare sphere of a wealthy country.

To a man, woman and child, we have endured two years of disruption to normal life and the reward for our commitment and solidarity must be a fully functioning HSE.

There will, at some stage, be another pandemic. It cannot be allowed, as this one has done, to interrupt the normal business of hospitals.

We cannot tolerate waiting lists, or missed diagnoses, because working in healthcare is such a financially unattractive career option that more people are leaving their jobs than can be recruited to replace them.