Sir, - Last Tuesday I got a phone call from my 19-year-old son. He was waiting with appendicitis in the Accident and Emergency room in the Mater Hospital in Dublin, for six hours already. The boy is studying in Dublin and is on his own. So I flew in from Amsterdam as fast as I could and found him the next morning in a chair, where he had spent the night in terrible discomfort. I believe it was only because of my arrival and the upheaval it caused that he was then put in a hospital bed.
After that he had to wait for 24 hours before he was operated on. Let me express my sympathy to all the staff of the Mater Hospital, working under such conditions and even dealing friendly with concerned parents who want to see their own kids helped first.
But I do wonder where the politicians who allow such horrible circumstances to exist go to when they are in an emergency. Not to the Mater, I believe. Because I am afraid it would hurt them too much to see how elderly ladies in the last state of cancer lie there waiting and in full view of all the other sufferers.
I understand that there has been an upheaval about the Dutch decision about euthanasia. But as a senior Irish lady cynically put it to me: "We solve this thing in a better way. We leave them dying at the door, so no decision has to be taken at all."
If the Celtic Tiger is still being fed with EU money, please use it to change this situation as soon as possible. - Yours, etc.,
Felix Wilbrink, Snodenhoekpark, Amsterdam, Netherlands.