Government seems to believe it will all be business as before, once the mob has settled down. It won't, writes MAURICE NELIGAN
They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits end.(Psalms 107:27)
HOW APT, mused he, thinking of our own times and governance. It is a tried and tested tactic that when your back is to the wall, you blame somebody else for your predicament; “the dog ate my homework” scenario.
In the case of our Government it was the predators in the big bad world outside. Despite Herculean efforts to promulgate this canard, none but the hard core party faithful actually believe it.
I am incensed, though not surprised, by the wheeling out of the usual whipping boys, the hospital consultants, to divert attention from the shambles that is the HSE. The Chinese general, Sun Tzu (c.600 B.C.) in his masterpiece The Art of Warstates that "gongs and drums, banners and flags are means whereby the ears and eyes of the host may be focused on one particular point".
In this case the particular point is the consultant body. The expensive gong men of the HSE contrive to leak it that some of these reprehensible doctors are treating more than the 20 per cent of private patients permitted under their recent contract.
These grasping creatures have been warned to mend their ways; otherwise sanctions will follow. Tremble, you miserable shower; Prof Drumm and the legions of the HSE are on your case.
They have alerted the politicians from the Minister for Trolleys, through the Public Accounts Committee, indeed anyone gullible enough to listen, to the catalogue of your misdemeanours.
This expensive co-ordinated spin is, as Horace put it, “splendide mendax” or outrageously false. It totally ignores the fact that currently 50 per cent of the population carry private health insurance.
Accordingly, the doctors would have to actually discriminate against those insured in order to maintain this warped ratio. This is especially so since most of the major hospitals are swamped by admissions from their AE departments.
In many cases, 80 per cent of the bed complement may be filled in this way. This is to the detriment of elective admissions, many of whom may also be critically ill.
This is a misuse of these tertiary hospitals with their specialised units and expensive equipment. Furthermore, it militates against the training of doctors, nurses and paramedics – the future of Irish medicine.
The Irish Examineron Friday, November 5th, as reported by its political correspondent, had the temerity to ask Prof Drumm as he left the Public Accounts Committee about his paltry €70,000 bonus for services in 2007.
He is reported to have said, “You’re asking me about 2007, I’m confused.” Later when TV3 pressed him for comment on the issue he is reported to have replied, “It’s a tough life.”
Shaun Connolly, who wrote the article, summed it all up succinctly. “Not on €500,000 a year it’s not, Prof Drumm.”
Oddly enough, no member of the PAC queried him about the bonus. They were busy following the wild goose chase and seeking to bag a few fat consultants. Shame on them.
However, if they get to remove their blinkers, I would suggest that they ask Prof Drumm and or the Minister two specific questions.
1) When was the entitlement of all Irish citizens to free hospitalisation revoked?
2) If 50 per cent of the admitted patients are deemed “private” and the consultants are to be censured for treating more than 20 per cent of them, what becomes of the rest; who treats them?
Today as I write, nurses, firemen, gardaí and paramedics are marching in Dublin. They’re not doing it for the exercise.
Today I read that the vacancies in Seanad Éireann are to be filled by the Government parties in December.
Today there is no mention of the pending by-election in Donegal; where the people would have a say.
You people in the Oireachtas just don’t seem to get it. You’re not listening. You seem to believe that it will all be business as before, once the mob has settled down. Well it won’t.
This particular member of the mob thinks there are far too many of you, costing far too much and achieving very little. I know my belief is shared by very many.
As for the ruling elite and its self-justifying propagandists, Socrates wrote, “if anyone at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons, and they in their dealings, either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good”.
If they believe they are serving the public good; God help us all.
- Maurice Neligan is a cardiac surgeon