Sir, – Today in Dublin I spent the day in clinic attending to children with various illnesses ranging from broken bones to congenital deformities to tumours.
Some had waited months to get a hospital appointment; some will wait months for their treatment. Such is the sorry state of the Irish public healthcare system. However no child was denied pain killers; no child was denied emergency surgery; no child was told that we were out of chemotherapy or insulin or morphine or anaesthetic agents.
Today, in Greece, doctors are explaining such realities to their patients.
The children of Greece are among the first to endure pain and suffering as a result of the “financial crisis”.
They have rights under Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health”.
The convention states “Parties shall strive to ensure that no child is deprived of his or her right of access to such health care services”.
Perhaps when debating this Greek tragedy we should all take a moment to consider the human suffering behind the political and financial stage.
Perhaps we should identify the health and wellbeing of the children of Greece as the primary goal in solving this crisis; perhaps the ECB can suffer a fiscal cut or a financial bruise and perhaps the IMF can wait a few months for its surgery; after all they have no heart, they won’t die. – Yours, etc,
Prof DAMIAN
Mc CORMACK, FRCS Orth,
The Children’s Hospital,
Temple St,
Dublin.
Sir, – One of the constant themes of the last few days concerning the outcome of the referendum in Greece seems to be that it was a “victory for democracy”.
As far as I can see what the no vote signified was that Greeks want to continue to get money from the troika but they don’t want to pay it back.
Accordingly I am seriously considering holding a democratic referendum myself in relation to my mortgage. I am hoping to be able to report another victory. – Yours, etc,
DAVE ROBBIE
Booterstown,
Co Dublin.
Sir, Michael Storey (Letters, July 8th) suggests that people around Europe be asked “do you accept more austerity to enable Greece to have less austerity?”.
A more sensible question would be “do you want more austerity to be imposed on Greece so that more austerity can be imposed on you, too?”.
In Ireland’s case, we might expect a supplementary question: “Do you want Greece to be denied debt relief, so that Ireland can also be denied debt relief?”.
This is the position of Michael Noonan, who would prefer to shell out €9 billion on interest repayments in 2016 than spend that money repairing the damage done to Ireland’s social fabric since the crisis began.
– Yours, etc
DANIEL FINN
Kenilworth Road
London.