Madam, - Two weeks ago Father Brendan Forde buried his sister, my close friend Barbara. The words he spoke at her funeral conveyed his distress and anger at the unnecessary loss of his sister to MRSA.
While praising the doctors and nurses who looked after her, he criticised a society which gives tax breaks to the rich but fails to provide the essential facilities in our public hospitals to minimise the spread of infection. Our most vulnerable people in intensive care units are exposed to additional risk when no single, isolation rooms are available.
According to a survey carried out in 2005 by the Irish Patients' Association, Ireland tops the league for MRSA in Europe, with a rate of infection two-and-a-half times that of the next country, Portugal. How many more families will have to go through the pain of unnecessary loss of their loved ones and why do we put up with such low standards in our health care system? Can we not learn lessons from those countries which are managing their health systems effectively and follow their best practice?
I am tired of hearing that we need more beds, more nurses, more neurologists, more isolation units, more everything! Many of us would be willing to forgo the 1 per cent reduction in the top tax rate if it were used to improve the health system.
I'm ashamed of our inertia, ashamed that we live in a country which treats its citizens so shabbily. - Yours, etc,
COLETTE SCULLION, Woodlands Park, Blackrock, Co Dublin.