Madam, - The suggestion that the late Charles Haughey suffered from the hospital super-bug MRSA raises the issue of the state of our health system. Even Mary Harney admitted recently that the health service is in crisis. It is also worth acknowledging Mr Haughey's role in this.
The origins of today's capacity crisis in our hospitals can be traced to the 1980s when Charles Haughey's government cut 2,000 beds. This legacy, that has undoubtedly left many people to die on trolleys in A&E units, cannot be ignored at this time.
The Thatcherite belief underlying that decision was the idea that public services should not be funded properly and the private sector should be promoted instead. "Comrade" Bertie, in Government, has faithfully continued this policy of his former "Boss".
Rather than investing public money in putting the much-needed beds in public hospitals or investing in the health staff, such as nurses, to operate them, the Government is instead promoting private beds in for-profit hospitals run by multinationals eg, the American multinational Triad will run the new Beacon Clinic in Sandyford in Dublin. For-profit hospitals will be given massive state handouts of billions in tax breaks and public land and will not give full services, only cherry-picking straightforward elective surgical cases. They are giving us the unequal and ineffective USA health model.
Our public services are still massively underfunded today, despite a budget surplus, while the private sector is being given public services through public- private partnerships and outsourcing.
A very different philosophy from that held by Charlie Haughey or Bertie Ahern is required urgently in this country if public services are to meet public needs and not private profits. - Yours, etc,
RORY HEARNE, PRO, People Before Profit Alliance, Department of Geography, Trinity College, Dublin 2.