Examining corruption in Ireland
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A report into the circumstances that led to the failed transportation of a Co Leitrim girl for a liver transplant to London in July has concluded no one person or agency was in charge of organising arrangements and the system was not reliable.
So, nothing new here.
Nobody was in charge therefore nobody is responsible therefore nobody is accountable.
Standby for the usual apologies and assurances that this will never happen again blah, blah blah…
There was an item on Morning Ireland discussing the serious neglect of children because of a lack of resources.
During the discussion Catherine Chent, a solicitor specializing in children’s rights told us that the HSE buys in an incredible amount of private services, sometimes at twice the cost as that paid in England.
I wonder who benefits from this strategy.
As usual, there was no representative from the HSE but this out of control organization did deign to provide a ‘statement’ (Number three) on the matter.
The HSE is developing a changed strategy over the next three years with high level goals.
I can just imagine the scene in the relevant office when the RTE request for a spokesperson arrived.
John, I think it’s your turn to talk bullshit to the nation.
It is not George, I was on last week and anyway, I’m checking out holiday destinations on the internet.
Ok, look, why don’t we just issue a statement.
Great idea, but which one?
Well, number two, five and seven have all being used recently. Let’s see, what about number three?
Yeah, whatever.
I was thinking of Bermuda this year George, what do you think?
Health Minister Dr. James Reilly said that the HSE document proposing possible cuts in waiting lists for pregnant women and a cap on vaccination programmes were nothing more than the internal reflections of someone within the HSE.
Asked about the possible closure of smaller hospitals he said:
The reality is that small hospitals have an enormous part to play in the delivery of care for our citizens and they will be supported by this government.
Here’s some of what happened in Latvia as a result of the IMF rescue in 2008/2009.
Half of all hospitals were closed.
There was a 30% cut in public service wages and thousands of public servants were sacked.
Over half of all state agencies were closed over a very short period of time.
This, and worse, is going to happen in Ireland and yet those in power continue to behave as if there’s an alternative, as if they still have the power to make choices.
Latvia, like Iceland, is on the road to recovery. Ireland is still wallowing in the doldrums of delusion.
In response to the latest health abuse scandal the Minister for Health, Dr. James Reilly, has told the Health Information and Quality Authority that it will have to consider actually regulating instead of relying on whistleblowers to uncover abuse.
Ok, it’s nothing more than a suggestion but none the less it is indeed historic that an Irish politician is even hinting that an Irish ‘regulator’ should actually regulate.
Changing times indeed.
Letter in today’s Irish Independent.
CF sufferers’ hope is fading fast
It has been revealed that the tender process for the long-awaited cystic fibrosis (CF) unit is not working, as the lowest tender failed to get the required finance in time.
The unique tender process, under which the company needs to finance the build and get paid on completion, was given to us as a solution when we campaigned to the Government last year. It is now more obvious than ever that this was a ploy to keep us quiet.
We are tired of writing letters to newspapers and TDs. We are tired of giving out. We are tired of being optimistic. It is unfair to expect us to fight again for more broken promises.
The awareness of the plight of people with CF is at an all-time high. Everyone knows the risks of us picking up potentially fatal infections on admission to shared wards; that our next hospital visit could be our last.
What we are asking for is standard in every other first-world country. We are not looking for gold-plated oxygen tanks!
Our hope is fading and we are asking for your help once again. I don’t want this fight to end when we are eventually silenced by picking up an infection in a sub-standard facility of “care”.
What more can we all say?
Maria Daly
Person with CF,
Carlow Person of the Year — Courage Award 2010,
Marino, Dublin 3
What we are asking for is standard in every other first-world country.
Unfortunately for Maria and all CF sufferers, they are living in a dangerously corrupt Third World country.
Two previous blogs on this disgraceful situation.
“I have absolutely no faith in the HSE or in Mary Harney” Bernadette Cooney, recently deceased. RIP
€2.35 million has gone missing in the HSE.
The Gardai are investigating.
The Comptroller and Auditor General is investigating.
The Department of Health is investigating.
The Department of Finance is investigating.
The HSE is investigating – for the second time.
Health Minister Mary Harney said that if any money had been misappropriated, it was a very serious matter.
No it’s not, the misappropriation of massive amounts of taxpayers money is a very common and fully accepted aspect of the administration of our banana republic, it’s part of what we are.
As with all such scandals in Ireland, there is only one certainty – nobody will be held accountable.
At a recent conference proposing a universal health system Minister for Health Mary Harney warned against creating false expectations (RTE, 31.00).
We live in an environment where we don’t have access to additional revenue in the medium term for health just as we haven’t for other areas of public policy either.
And therefore to make recommendations that weren’t based on neutral revenue perspectives would be recommendations that couldn’t be implemented.
During the boom years when there was plenty of money around Harney could easily have put in place a universal health system that was fair to all citizens.
Instead, she enthusiastically pursued a right wing, for profit policy that has firmly established a two tier health system where those with money gain immediate access to treatment while those without, like Suzie Long, are left to take their chances.
Listening to such dishonest waffle from this politician it’s difficult to believe that she was once a person of courage and integrity, that she was a leading influence in challenging the corrupt activities of the criminal Haughey.
Dr. Mary Favier of the Irish College of General Practitioners had the following to say on Drivetime (Thursday) regarding the 57,000 x-rays that went unreported in Tallaght Hospital.
57,000 x rays went unreported and orthopedics, where there are waiting times of 600 days, are particularly profitable areas and nobody has answered my question in relation to how many of those 57,000 x- rays were public and how many were private.
The HSE say they don’t know which I find impossible to believe and the hospital is refusing to answer the question. Anybody locally is saying that the vast majority if not all, of those x- rays are public.
A quote from the book, The Bitter Pill, written anonymously three years ago by a doctor working within the health system may provide the answer.
Imagine a radiologist’s office. On his desk sit two stacks of x-rays. One stack, usually the bigger one, is that of public patients; the other is that of private patients.
For each private x-ray the radiologist will be paid upwards of €50. For the public x-ray he has already been paid, in his monthly salary.
Whether the public x-ray is reported on today, tomorrow or next week, the radiologist will still be paid the full amount of his salary, on time.
For private scans, on the other hand, he will be paid only after he has completed them. The upshot is that the private scans often take precedence over the public ones (The Bitter Pill, page 29).
The real question that needs to be answered is – How debased, corrupt and immoral does the administration of this country have to become before the people rise up and throw these contemptible scumbags in jail?
Is it the smell of money that’s getting at them?
This was the response of disgraced obstetrician Michael Neary when asked about the complaints of women whose lives were destroyed by his brutal operations.
The full impact of the words of this cynically evil man can best be understood by listening to the news clip (Six One News, 27 mins).
110,000 employees in the Health Service Executive struggle to provide a service for a tiny percentage of Ireland’s 4.5 million population.
40,000 EU bureaucrats operate an administration system that serves a population of 500 million
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