Madam, - Your paper broadcasts a steady bombardment of denunciation by hospital consultants of the politicians responsible for the healthcare system. Just as a sample, on Tuesday we had the usual polemic from Maurice Neligan and on Wednesday, we had J B Healy laying into the politicians.
The remarkable thing is that so many of these consultants, especially Prof Neligan, still insist on political control of healthcare. This appears to be based on some ideology or other, and flies in the face of any objective, rational evaluation.
A rational person, faced with failure on such a scale over so many years, would conclude that a politically controlled system just doesn't work.
If Prof Neligan and his colleagues continue to demand a public, ie government-run, health service, they should accept the inevitable consequences - inefficient, misdirected healthcare that puts the patient at the end of the priority list.
- Yours, etc.,
Dr NORMAN STEWART, Malahide, Co Dublin.