Madam, - The health service and its patients, like plants in a garden, need constant attention. That attention comes from the staff. Mary Harney seems hell bent on confrontation, either refusing to address inequalities in nurses' working conditions or enforcing silent obedience from consultants with contractual gagging orders.
Consideration of the assets of the health service usually relate to hospitals, beds and equipment, but the biggest intangible asset of the health service is the goodwill of its staff. Mary Harney and the HSE have, in a few short months, caused damage that may take years to repair.
I saw this 15 years ago when working in the UK, with the imposition of an ideologically driven internal market in the National Health Service and a massive rise in management overheads. It saddens me to see the same unnecessary harm being inflicted on an Irish healthcare system which is in more need of fertilisation than steamrolling.
- Yours, etc,
IAN FLITCROFT, Rathmichael, Dublin 18.