FOR the last eight years, Mr Jim Gibbons (64), from Mervue in Galway city has been waiting for a triple by pass heart operation.
He was first referred for tests in 1989, when he complained of a tightness in his chest. Since then, he has been on medication and has not been able to work.
"The medication is not going to cure me, he says. "It is just going to keep me stable .. . it's like playing a match, you are wondering what's going to happen - is it going to be a point, or a goal?"
A driver with Roadstone for most of his working life, for years Mr Gibbons rose at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. to get on the road before the morning traffic, frequently not returning home until late at night. Over the years, he has paid thousands of pounds in tax, yet when he fell ill he found the public health system unable to look after him.
When he was first diagnosed with a heart condition he asked how long he would have to wait. "They said between six and 12 months. So I said, `that's fair enough'. Time went on, and I was called for checkups and what have you.
"I met a different doctor most times and they said, `Oh, another six months, another 12 months'. It's eight years now, which I think is ridiculous.
"I have been working for 45 years, and I have paid tax, PRSI, youth levy, you name it. Now, when I'd want to get something done, the money isn't there, or the beds aren't there."
Mr Gibbons says it is scandalous that the Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, has passed over. Galway's claim for a cardiac surgical centre in favour of St James's Hospital in Dublin. He points out that heart surgery will now be available in three Dublin hospitals and one in Cork, but nowhere else in the State.
"In the (Galway) University Hospital they have the finest of doctors, people who could do these things if they had the facilities, the theatre and the amenities. You have in the city of Galway now possibly 70,000 people, or near enough to it. That's only taking in the city. What about Roscommon, Mayo, Connemara, all these places? Galway should have priority to get the facilities here.
He started his career as an ambulance driver in Merlin Park Hospital in Galway, and says the system of ferrying patients between Galway and Dublin is wrong.
"I would have to go up for the operation, which is all wrong because you are taken out of your own environment, and away from people who are going to come in to see you and what have you.
"I've been talking to people who have got that operation done in Dublin, and they say that after a week you are shoved into an ambulance or a taxi, to make room for other people.
"You are motored down from Dublin, 130 miles, and you'd want to be fairly fit to be travelling in the back of an ambulance or in a car after a major operation. That shouldn't be on at all."
But worst of all, according to Mr Gibbons, is the uncertainty that accompanies the long wait for treatment. "You're sitting there thinking, am I going to get the call? When am I going to get the call? Am I going to get a heart attack? What is going to happen?"
IN THE meantime, all the doctors can do is advise him to "take it steady" and avoid stressing his heart. "The longer it goes on the more frustrated you get. Eight years is a long, long time.
"If Mr Noonan, or some of these people, or their relations, were waiting for eight years I wonder how they would feel. What would be the story then?"
The Minister's decision to locate the new cardiac centre in St James's has come as a bomb shell" to hundreds of heart patients in the west, according to Croi, the West of Ireland Cardiology Foundation.
It has been campaigning for such a centre for Galway and said Mr Noonan's decision, which was announced last week, is "a betrayal of the special needs of heart patients in the west".
The decision meant heart patients in the west would have to wait longer for surgery and "would continue to be deprived of early access to emergency procedures", Croi said in a statement.
The decision to locate the new centre in Dublin was announced as part of an £8 million initiative to tackle waiting lists. In his statement announcing the decision, Mr Noonan said the choice of St James's Hospital for the centre was recommended in a report from an expert group last year.
"University College Hospital, Galway, is currently embarking on a major hospital development and upgrading," the statement said.
"The capital work is bringing with it a reappraisal of the service configuration within the hospital and any decision to locate a cardiac surgery service here should await the completion of the current development."