4,000 march in rally for 'decent health service'

THE HUSBAND of cancer victim Susie Long has sharply criticised the Government, accusing it of contributing to 5,000 deaths every year because of its health policies. Susie Long died last year from bowel cancer.

Her family blamed her death on the seven-month wait for a colonoscopy which delayed a diagnosis.

Her husband Conor McLiam told protesters at a rally in Dublin on Saturday that Ms Long "pointed the finger at Bertie Ahern, Mary Harney, Micheál Martin and Michael Woods . . ."

He quoted figures from the Health Research Board which estimated that inequality and health disadvantage in Ireland kills 5,000 people every year. "We need to fight to end the two-tier apartheid system in health and to stop the underfunding which is denying us our lifesaving service," he said.

About 4,000 people turned out for the rally organised by the Dublin Congress of Trade Unions and others from the Garden of Remembrance to the Dáil.

The turnout was considerably less than the 70,000 forecast earlier in the week by Janette Byrne of the patients' lobby group Patients Together.

Ms Byrne said the rally reflected "ongoing disgust at a Government which leaves us without mental health services, without home care packages, cancelled operations and most disgusting of all - the time a rape victim must wait for a vital assessment.

"The pain and suffering of the people in this country is endless".

Brenda Power, presenter of the Your Call programme on Newstalk, said the public-private health system was "immoral" and shamed a wealthy country. "It says to the public patient you are a charity case and a supplicant and you will bloody well get treated when we decide to treat you."

Her programme has incurred the wrath of the Health Service Executive because it has taken to contacting health officials directly to have problems sorted out.

"Some of the stories we have heard are heart-breaking, shocking and border on slapstick," she said.

Consultant medical oncologist Dr John Crown, who has been one of the fiercest critics of the health system, called for a form of mutual health insurance based on the one enjoyed by gardaí and an end to plans for colocated hospitals.

"It is not only unfair, it is not only inequitable, it is totally insane. No rational person sitting down and planning a health system at a time when patients are living longer and treatment is getting better, would take every hospital in the country and divide it straight down the middle into public and private. It is not the way to do it," he said.

A summit meeting of all the groups and trade unions involved in the health sector will be held on April 26th and a public meeting entitled Public Medicine is Bad for Your Health will take place on April 19th in Liberty Hall.