Madam, - It was galling in the extreme to hear a spokesman for the HSE lecturing the nation on air a few days ago that a patient's arrival at an A&E is timed from when he or she sees a consultant.
Whereas common sense dictates that my time of arrival at any social or medical venue is gauged from the moment I present myself at a reception desk, the HSE wants me to accept that the four hours which one of my loved ones recently spent enduring searing agony in a filthy and crowded A&E - an agony so severe it subsequently failed to respond to an injection of pethidine - counted for nothing.
Nor were the family members who accompanied this patient concerned only for her welfare: they were traumatised for several days afterwards by the plight of several elderly people they described as suffering heart attacks or dying of emphysema, for hour after hour, but who had no one to speak up for them.
The HSE's dismissive attitude to the suffering presently being endured in its A&E units displays a level of gratuitous cruelty which would be unacceptable even in the setting of an abattoir. - Yours, etc,
ANNE CAHILL,
Laurel Park,
Clondalkin,
Dublin 22.