HEART BEAT: The consultant medicine men under their great chief Hiawatha had gathered to meet the Health Chief Maryhaha, to discuss the cure of the ailing health service.
Solemnly they raised their right arms in the traditional greeting: How! Maryhaha replied simply: "I havent a clue." "We know that," they intoned gravely. "We were merely saying Hello."
No this not a tale of Hiawatha the mighty consultant and the beguiling, but devious Maryhaha. It is rather a bemused pondering of her words and what if anything they mean.
It is pondered mightily by the medicine men as they sit in council around their fires outside their small wigwams in Ailesbury and Shrewsbury Roads. By ancient tradition they should be smoking their pipes, but alas this now is a thing of the past due to the pronouncements of Miceal, he of the big wind.
Their mood was troubled, for the cowboys had entered the world of the medicine men and it was feared that things would never be the same again. These cowboys were offering beads and mirrors to the braves if they gave up their contracts and moved off the medical stage and ceased thwarting the designs of the great Maryhaha, once she knew what they were.
The problem was, they thought that she spoke in riddles. Some of the more warlike braves thought she spoke unadulterated nonsense. The braves had been worried as their traditional hunting grounds were being progressively narrowed and hemmed in and there was talk of restricting their freedom to roam and that they could no longer hunt the patients on the prairies with the freedom of yore. The trouble was that the cowboys wanted to get in on the act and having built all the hotels and houses and BES schemes they now wanted fresh pastures. Wise old men who questioned the sense and propriety of building the nation's future on construction were ignored, for after all had this not all been decided at the jamboree in the Great Wigwam, when the mighty chief Bertie had spoken and decreed it should be so.
The medicine men decided this was the hot air that blew from Kildare Street and things would revert to normal with the passage of the seasons. However, at the coming of the Winter Moon, Maryhaha spoke and all felt her vision was clouded and unclear.
The medicine men felt as if they were listening to one who had been at the mushrooms and who could not see clearly the chaos surrounding the treatment of the sick of the tribe. The usual visions were expounded, the usual delusions entertained and saving your presence, Great Spirit in the Sky, all were promised that things would improve.
One chief who questioned the vision was told he lived on another planet, and all grew troubled as we all felt that it was Maryhaha herself who dwelt there. We had not wished her any ill will so long as she stayed there, listened before she spoke, attended the words of those who had grown grey in the service of medicine and had not made things worse than they already were.
She had called a pow-wow with the medicine men in her big wigwam in Hawkins House to change the ways of the tribe forever and to assure health and eternal life to all. Some were dubious because the ritual bashing of medicine men was a pastime indulged in by the rulers before the people should be asked to vote in an election.
This was akin to the medicine men being sin eaters and acknowledging that they were responsible for the ills of the tribe. It was also designed to hide the fact that the aforesaid afflictions were worse now than at any time in living memory. The medicine men were summoned to discuss a new contract, which apparently was to remain secret until they had agreed.
Furthermore, before the pipe of peace or its politically correct equivalent had been smoked, Maryhaha donned her war bonnet, the awesome frightening bonnet of horse feathers, usually worn by her predecessors in office. The war paint was put on, the tomahawks sharpened and a threat of a lesser breed of medicine man was introduced. Smoke signals having been banned, the fearsome warriors of the HSE were summoned by tom tom to the aid of Maryhaha. They performed the usual dance to her tune, endlessly repeating the mantra; "things are getting better".
As they shuffled around in their grotesque little dance they promised that the tribe would see a "measurable improvement" within a year. Furthermore, they said that members of tribes should be treated in their own hunting grounds and not dispatched to foreign fields. This upset the Indians of Monaghan and ignored the fact that these facilities for treating the braves and squaws simply do not exist. "They will" they chorused, after the next election.
Trouble was the medicine men had heard it all before and were not impressed by the brazen claims that things are getting better. They who deal with the sick know it is not so.
We will leave the braves gearing for war and await the dawn of reality, but as they say "don't hold your breath". For my part as I had asked for assurance that PPARS was not for real, I would now like to be told that it is not true that senior people in the HSE are being paid €180,000-plus for a three-day week. Please tell me that this rumour is without foundation.
Maurice Neligan is a cardiac surgeon