Sligo's Cancer Services & the Illusion of 'Democracy'

In the run-up to the general election in the twenty six counties earlier this year, the usual rash of political promises were made by those hoping to be elected to Leinster House. In the Sligo/North Leitrim constituency, probably the one single issue that was to the fore in that campaign and indeed throughout the past couple of years, has been the removal of breast cancer services from Sligo General Hospital and the campaign to have it returned.

Despite massive public opposition, in 2009 Sligo's Breast Cancer Services were finally shut down and transferred to University College Hospital Galway (UCHG). The Health Service Executive (HSE) rationale was that UCHG was one of the eight new centres of excellence established by the government  where those from the north-west requiring treatment would recieve superior treatment than Sligo could provide, despite Sligo's excellent record in cancer care.

 100 day Countdown Near Sligo General Hospital

The reality was totally different as campaigners and medical personnel had warned of in the run-in to the transfer of services. UCHG was already having difficulty as a result of government cutbacks in the health service coping with its present workload and patient care before they ever had to deal with the increased volume of cancer sufferers from the north west.

Since the move, government cutbacks have caused chaos at times for the medical staff trying to provide an essential service and for patients who have had to endure long waits, lying on trolleys, canceled appointments and delayed surgery. Indeed the numbers of patients, including cancer sufferers, forced to lie on trolleys at UCHG in 2010 reached an all-time high of 4,100. Those figures are set to be surpassed in 2011 as so far this year the numbers confined to trollies has been increasing steadily on last years record high.  Most days the numbers effected are somewhere between 20 and 40 patients.

In April the HSE's own Healthstat survey confirmed UCHG as the state's worst hospital. So much for the hyped up 'centre of excellence'!

 Health Minister James Reilly

Just over a year ago (March 29 2010) the then Fine Gael spokesperson on Health, now Minister for Health, James Reilly made a firm commitment to return the services to Sligo, describing the transfer of Sligo's cancer services to Galway the previous year as “not a balanced approach to cancer care”.

Yet as recently as this week that very same James Reilly, now the Minister with responsibility for this issue, replying to a question in Leinster House as to fulfilling their 100 day pledge, the Minister refused to give any answer as to if and when the promised return of services would occur.

All the candidates bar the Green party's Johnny Gogan, expressed their support for the return of the cancer services to Sligo General Hospital if they were elected and their parties were in government. Specific promises were made, and recorded during live debates on Ocean FM radio and at a public meeting in the Clarion Hotel that was broadcast live on the internet (click on the video below).

In particular, the Fine Gael candidates, Minister John Perry and Deputy Tony McLoughlin and the then Labour candidate and now Senator Susan O'Keefe made specific commitments that the cancer services would be returned within 100 days of them taking office.  Not only did they give those commitments, they also promised to resign their seats if the pledges were not delivered as promised.  Indeed Labour's commitment went even further, pledging not just to return breast cancer services to Sligo but to actually make Sligo General Hospital a ninth centre of excellence.

With just 15 days to go until that deadline expires, it is clear that this Fine Gael/Labour coalition have no intention of re-instating these services despite all their promises. Once again, people are being betrayed by those who claim to represent them and their interests.

A spokesperson for the Save our Cancer Services - North West told the Sligo Today website that the Ministers reply sounded “as if Mary Harney herself wrote it”.

Former Health Minister Mary Harney

In relation to the pre-election commitments the spokesperson added that “we have strong clear commitments they (breast cancer services) will be restored and if this letter means otherwise than we are talking about an imminent letter of resignation from John Perry followed by a similar one from Tony McLoughlin.”

“That was the clear pre-election promise they both gave and this turn of events could not only turn out to be tragic for Sligo General Hospital and the provision of cancer care in this region but also for both these politicians. Their commitment was not just that services would be restored but that in the event that that did not materialise they would resign”.

Yesterday (June 2) Minister Perry refused to say on local radio whether the services would be restored or not within the 100 days. In a live interview on Ocean FM's North West Today programme, Perry refused to give a straight answer to any question relating to the services. Unhappy with the issue of the pledge and his promise to resign being raised if the services were not returned, Perry hung up in the middle of the interview. (Click on the image below to listen to the interview)

While campaigners and the public in general throughout the north west will be extremely angry at this U-turn by both Fine Gael and Labour, they should not be surprised. Already, just three months into this coalition, there are a litany of election promises that have been binned now that they have secured power and have their backsides on Ministerial seats.  

These broken promises show the true nature of our so-called democracy. It shows how relying on electing politicians every five years is to a large degree meaningless as we have no control over what they do, what decisions they make once there. Allowing us to occasionally put a mark beside a candidate on a ballot paper is designed not to enable change or allow people's participation in decisions effecting them, their communities or their country. No, it is designed to give people that illusion while the decision making processes remain firmly within the grip of the political and business classes that control this country.

Real democracy must be a continuous process of decision making relating to all aspects of society with those who are affected by those decisions controlling the decision-making process and must be based upon economic democracy. Power and influence are only ever wielded by those who control the wealth and wealth producing means in society. Therefore to have real democracy then it must be based upon the ownership and control of the means of production by the mass of working people.  Without that ownership and control, meaningful change and a just truly democratic society is impossible.

To borrow a phrase from the title of former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone: If voting changed anything they would abolish it

The Windsor Visit – A Bad Week for Irish Journalism

For months the political, business and media establishment have told us that the Windsor visit would result in all sorts of benefits and positive changes for this state.  So now as she has finally left our shores, what are all these benefits and what exactly has changed as a result of this visit?  Has there been any postive political developments?  Has there been any change in the relationship between the peoples of Britain and Ireland?

According to Kathy Sheridan writing in the Irish Times on Wednesday - 'All is changed, changed utterly'. The reality however is completely different. Look beyond the media hype and spin and it is clear that nothing has changed at all.

As the Windsors departed our shores yesterday (Friday) their government continue to deny the Irish people the right to self-determination. Just one hundred miles up the road from our capital city, 5000 British troops continue to occupy the six counties. The 9000 strong human rights abusing British paramilitary police – the RUC/PSNI – and the hundreds of MI5 operatives who enforce the occupation remain in place also.

The RUC/PSNI continue to engage in a systematic campaign of harassment and intimidation against those who dare challenge British rule in Ireland. They continue to carry out house-raids and terrorise nationalist estates as well as engaging in illegal stop and search operations which violate human rights legislation.

The internment of ex republican POW's has also been stepped up with Marian Price last week being the latest to be jailed at the behest of the British government without trial. The denial of political status for republican prisoners, their ill-treatment and torture and miscarriages of justice all continue unabated.

Have the families of the victims of the Dublin/Monaghan bombings, the anniversary of which was the very day Windsor arrived in Dublin, received a commitment that the British government will open their secret files on their role in the atrocities? Once more the answer is no as Britain rules out doing so, denying justice yet again to the families. Yet not a single whimper of protest from the sorry excuse for leaders of this so-called 'republic' who were too busy bowing and scraping before the 'British Royals' to stand up for the people they claim to govern on behalf of.

As for the relationship between the people of Ireland and Britain, nothing has changed there either.

Why not?  Put simply this visit was never about them. This was about a select wealthy political and business elite who care nothing for the working class people of either Ireland or Britain. It was about 'normalising', not relations between Irish and British people, but rather the continued military and political occupation of the six counties.

Over recent months the establishment went into overdrive promoting this visit and trying to downplay and silence opposition to it.  However, even more shameful was the unquestioning sycophantic role played by the corporate media over this visit. We have been treated to months and months of meaningless platitudes such as 'its time to move on', 'leave the past behind us', 'forgive and forget' and the extreme nonsense that somehow welcoming an undemocratic, sectarian, head of an occupying army is somehow us as a nation 'maturing'.

Gardai try to Intimidate éirígí activists legally erecting posters in Dublin on eve of Windsor visit

In a prime example of how overwhelmingly pro-establishment, compliant and gutless the corporate media in this state is, they ensured that there was absolutely no critical analysis of these platitudes and bogus assertions. There was virtually no questioning of the basis of any of those claims regardless of how ludricous they were. Instead they merely produced article after article, opinion piece after opinion piece, parroting the 'consensus' of how great the English Monarch is and how great this visit would be for all of us.  And as for anyone who had the cheek to question this consensus the corporate media spared no effort in their attempts to portray them as somehow being political dinosaurs filled with hate and bitterness.

So it would have been hard to imagine that Irish corporate media coverage of the actual visit itself could be any more cringeworthy. However, to be fair to them, they made a sterling effort and succeeded to produce four days of vomit inducing commentary that ignored the opposition to it and ignored the plight of Dublin residents suffering under the massive security operation and lock-down. They also deliberately ignored the co-ordinated and illegal actions of the Gardai in attempting to prevent legitimate peaceful protest.

Union Jack Flies above Government Buildings Dublin while Gardai throw Irish National Flag in Refuse truck

None dared break the consensus and report on Gardai stealing posters and banners or throwing the national flag in rubbish bins and refuse trucks as they effectively banned it from the capital city of this state. There was no questioning as to whether the tens of millions of euros spent on this visit would have been better spent elsewhere, such as in our hospitals and schools or for Special Needs Assistants and Carers or to assist the families of victims of British atrocities.

They did not dare direct their “move forward” comments towards Windsor and her government. Surely it would have been appropriate to ask that in order to 'move forward' and 'put the past behind us' that the British finally end their occupation of the six counties? Surely they could have asked them if they were genuine in wanting improved relations between Ireland and Britain that they open up their secret files on their involvement in the Dublin/Monaghan bombings and other atrocities they committed in collusion with the unionist death squads (whose leaders were her special guests at islandbridge on Wednesday)?

But no, silence on these issues was the consensus. No mention of the fact that these troops of hers continue to commit atrocities around the world.  Indeed within hours of Windsor departing from Ireland, hundreds of her notorious Royal Irish Regiment (RIR) soldiers marched through Ballymena after completing their latest stint in their brutal occupation of Afghanistan. 

No mention of the fact that she is a war crimes apologist. No mention of the fact that she continues to refuse to strip from the Paratroopers responsible for the Bloody Sunday massacre the honours that she awarded those murderers. 

Instead we heard a narrative of a little old lady and her husband over for a few quiet days in Ireland to promote peace and goodwill.  And no 'journalist' dared ask the obvious question – what exactly is it about this anti-democratic, sectarian, war crimes apologist who lives a life of privilege, that has the leaders of this so-called 'republic' here in the 26 counties almost wetting themselves with excitement at the prospect of being in her company and fawning over her? 

The one sure thing that could be said about the Irish corporate media's coverage was that it could not be described, no matter how broad a definition used, as 'journalism'. Those that produced such biased, unquestioning and sycophantic reports in this propaganda blitz should hang their heads in shame. It has exposed yet again a complete lack of any credible mainstream media outlet willing to critically examine or question the political establishment line.

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éirígí welcome resignation of Harney - Minister for Death

éirígí Dublin City Councillor Louise Minihan has welcomed Mary Harney's resignation as Minister for Health and said that working class communities throughout Ireland would rejoice at her departure. She also said that Harney must be made to hand back any pensions she is now due to recieve.

Cllr Minihan said: “Harney has overseen and implemented the systematic dismantling of our hospitals and the public health care system in order to pave the way for the full privatisation of  it. The end result has been increasing numbers of hospital patients on trolleys, longer waiting lists, ill people having to travel long distances to receive treatment, prolonged suffering, lives being placed unnecessarily at risk and avoidable deaths.”

“At the same time as she was slashing hospital budgets and essential services, along with her cabinet colleagues, she was happy to protect the wealth of the bankers and developers by pumping tens of billions of euros of taxpayers money into bailing out the banks and paying off their private gambling debts. This was money that could have, and should have, been spent creating a first class health service accessible to all based on medical need and not on a persons wealth.”

“Harney will be remembered for her extremely callous and uncaring attitude and the unnecesary hardship, suffering and death caused as a direct result of policies implemented by her. Far too many families have mourned their loved ones who died because of delays in diagnosis and treatment as a result of policies she implemented. Few will mourn the resignation of Harney the Minister for Death."

Cllr Minihan concluded: “Considering the appalling legacy she leaves behind her and the enormous suffering she is responsible for, it is inconceivable that she could be allowed to feather her own nest and benefit financially from her time as Minister for Health. She must be forced to hand back her very substantial pensions and be brought to account for her actions and the unnecessary hardship and death she has caused.”

Thousands Protest Against Hospital Cuts in Letterkenny

Thousands of people took to the streets of Letterkenny in Co Donegal yesterday (Saturday Aug 7) to show their anger at Dublin Government and HSE (Health Service Executive) plans to slash services at Letterkenny General Hospital and to impose other cuts throughout the health service.

Around 3000 people assembled at the station roundabout in the town at midday for the rally which was organised by the newly formed 'Save Donegal Health Services' campaign group.  Led by a piper, the large crowd marched up the Port Road towards the Main Street before turning up High Road and proceeding to the hospital itself where a number of speakers addressed the crowd.

Amongst those who delivered speeches to those assembled were spokespeople from the three main health service Trade Unions, IMPACT, SIPTU and the INMO (Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation).  Speakers from the Voice of Older People Donegal (VOPD) and Donegal Action  for Cancer Care (DACC) also addressed the crowd.

The planned cuts for Letterkenny include a reduction in day services, the closure of an operating theatre, the removal of at least 13 beds from Orthopaedics and the Intensive Care Unit as well as the slashing of the numbers of hours being worked by almost 100 members of staff at the hospital.  They are also to close a pharmacy and shut the hospital's mortuary on a Saturday.  Similar cutbacks are planned at Sligo General Hospital and other hospitals throughout the region.

Smaller hospitals such as the Sheil Hospital in Ballyshannon and Lifford Community hospital, both in County Donegal, are threatened with imminent closure.  Now the HSE are saying that they may also close a major hospital somewhere in the west but they have refused to say which hospital they have their sights on.

Fianna Fáil and the Green party are also believed to planning even further cutbacks in the region of €600 million in the upcoming budget beyond these current plans to slash services.




Following the rally, the HSE issued a statement in which they claimed they would "protect front-line services" and that all services provided by HSE West would be provided in a "safe manner".

Sligo éirígí activist Gerry Casey, who was one of many éirígí activists from Counties Sligo and Donegal to take part in the Rally, dismissed the HSE's assertions saying that the planned cutbacks are "completely unnecessary" and will cause "unnecessary suffering and death".  He said the Dublin government are deliberately slashing services and stripping the health service bare to facilitate the privatisation of the public health service.

Speaking following the rally, Casey said:  "The savage cutbacks planned by the HSE and their political masters will decimate what remains of the public health service.  They are using the excuse of the recession, caused by their corruption and greed in the first place, to strip the public service bare and to  press ahead with the privatising of our public health service.  It is also being used to drive down workers wages and condition within the health service."

He said:  "Contrary to the lies and spin emanating from the political and business elite, all of these cutbacks are completely unnecessary.  While Brian Lenihan and Mary Harney say they cannot afford to properly fund our health service, they have no hesitation in pumping tens of billions of euros to bail out the banking sector and the wealthy business elite.  They have no hesitation in squandering millions of euros on flying around on the government jet or to invite the English Monarch here on a state visit.  The message is clear – the profits of the banks and the rich mean more to this administration than the health and lives of those who depend  on the public health care system."    




He added:  "Despite the recession, Ireland remains a wealthy country, where the rich have got even richer while workers and those on welfare have been made to bail out the banks and developers.  A wealth tax could and should be introduced to make the rich pay. Our valuable natural resources, which should never have been given away in the first place, must be nationalised and the hundreds of billions of euros worth of oil and gas utilised to create a first class health service for all."

Casey concluded:  "If the government are allowed get away with these proposed cuts, the reality is that people who cannot afford private health care will suffer unnecessarily and even die as a result.  We should not be surprised that this administration puts private profit before the health and well being of the people they claim to govern on behalf of but we have a duty and responsibility to not let them away with it.  If we fail to stop what can only be described as the wanton vandalism and destruction of our health service then future generations will suffer greatly and needlessly."

Unnecessary Health Cuts & the Give-away of our Natural Resources

Opinion piece by éirígí's spokesperson in Donegal Micheál Cholm MacGiolla Easbuig.  This article was carried in yesterdays Tir Chonaill newspaper (Aug 4th 2010)

In recent weeks, the Fianna Fáil/Green party coalition have been flagging up yet further cutbacks they plan to introduce in the upcoming budget. This follows a series of the most savage budget cutbacks imposed since the foundation of the 26 county state.

This administration's policies has decimated the economy, created mass unemployment (22,000 + in Donegal alone), driven thousands of families into poverty, forced tens of thousands of young people to emigrate once more and systematically stripped down our hospitals and health services to crisis point.

Letterkenny General Hospital

Not content to see tens of thousands of people lose their jobs, the government heaped further misery on already struggling familes by slashing their social welfare, cutting child benefit, ending the Chrismas bonus, introducing the carbon Tax and increasing fuel costs. All this has led to a sharp decline in people's living standards and has caused increased poverty.

Institute of Public Health in Ireland research published in 2007 claimed that fuel poverty directly effects people’s health. According to the Report, every year during the winter months, almost 3,000 people die due to preventable, cold-related illness.

Figures from the Central Statistics Office show that, in 2008, more than four per cent of people were living in consistent poverty, with almost 15 per cent at risk of poverty. Almost a third of those living in consistent poverty were children. All those figures will have risen dramatically over the past two years as unemployment soared and wages and welfare were cut.

In recent weeks we have seen HSE proposals to slash services even further at Letterkenny General Hospital and elsewhere throughout the state. Smaller hospitals such as Lifford's community hospital and the Sheil Hospital in Ballyshannon face closure also. Such cuts, if the government get their way, will mean severe reductions in essential services, longer waiting lists, increased workloads for already overburdened front line hospital staff and increased suffering and even deaths for patients who will not get the medical care and assistance they need when they need it.

However, if that was not bad enough, the HSE's political masters are now intent in forcing through even more severe cutbacks in the upcoming budget. They are planning to slash the Health, Education and Social Welfare Budgets by €1.1 billion, €700 million of that from an already underfunded, understaffed and under-resourced health service.

Fianna Fáil say these cuts are necessary but the reality is the opposite. There is no excuse for cutting funding and services for hospitals. It is a deliberate political decision and strategy based on Fianna Fáil's and the now-defunct PD's right wing privatisation ideology.

When it comes to throwing tens of billions of euros to bail out the banks or €8 million to bring the Commander in Chief of the British army Elizabeth Windsor to this state next year Fianna Fáil and the Greens have no problem. Yet ask them to invest in our hospitals and and they tell us the money is not there.

But the money is there, only they believe bailing out banks is more important than our health. This remains a wealthy state, however the wealth is controlled by a small minority. As workers and those on welfare have seen their incomes slashed, the rich in this state have become even richer. Yet the administration in Leinster House refuses to introduce a wealth tax and refuses to nationalise our natural resources which would bring in hundreds of billions of euros that could be used to create a first class health service for all.

Under the seabed off the coast of Mayo, Sligo and Donegal lies oil and gas that rightfully belong to the Irish people. These valuable resources are worth at least €500 billion and in all likelihood far in excess of that. Yet, in one of the most shameful decisions ever made, Fianna Fáil signed away the rights to this vast wealth to private multinational oil giants like Shell, who have an appalling environmental and human rights record around the world.

But it is not too late to do something about this – all that is lacking is the political will. This wealth, could and should be used to reverse the savage welfare and pay cuts and to create jobs and stem the flow of young people emigrating. It should be used to eradicate the shameful blight of poverty that continues to increase. It should be used to, not just reverse the cuts at Letterkenny General Hospital and elsewhere, but to invest in creating efficient health and education services accessible and available to all based on need, as opposed to a person's wealth.

In short, it should be used to create a fairer society, one that cherishes all the children of the nation equally in line with the 1916 proclamation, with a better standard of living for all. So the next time you hear a Fianna Fáil politician telling you how these cuts are unavoidable and how hard decisions have to be made, dont hesitate in telling them that the decisions they need to make are to tax the wealthy, nationalise our natural resources and to fund our hospitals, not the banks. Your health is more important than keeping the wealthy political and business elite living in the luxurious lifestyles they are accustomed to.

Protest against Hospital Cuts - Letterkenny Sat Aug 7

As people will already be aware, the Health Service Executive (HSE), on behalf of their political masters in Leinster House, are preparing to cut staff numbers and slash services at hospitals throughout the country.  This includes both Letterkenny and Sligo General Hospitals here in the north west.  The future of other smaller units such as Lifford Community Hospital and the Sheil hospital in Ballyshannon are also under threat.

As this blog has regularly highlighted (click here for most recent article) the cutbacks already imposed on our hospitals and health service in general, have caused immense suffering and hardship to patients. According to the main nursing union, the INMO "the level of cuts, currently being imposed upon our public health service, are compromising patient care, lowering standards and greatly increasing the clinical risk to patients." 

Following their carrying out of a comprhensive review of the entire Health Service, the INMO said that they discovered the following:

• Over 1,500 public beds are closed including beds in hospitals designated as Centres of Excellence resulting in longer waiting time for essential treatment

• Very high levels of A&E overcrowding with over 300 people on trolleys, awaiting a bed, on nine days in July as compared to one in July 2009

• Primary care services being curtailed, or suspended indefinitely, due to a shortage of nursing staff 

• Intellectual disability services being curtailed, suspended or eliminated altogether, again due to the shortage of human or financial resources; and 

• Frontline staff, in nursing, midwifery and other support grades, not being replaced resulting in frontline direct patient care services being compromised.

Letterkenny General Hospital

Amongst the latest cuts planned by the HSE for Letterkenny General Hospital are believed to be a plan to cut the working hours of 94 members of staff on fixed term contracts by eight hours each.  Such cutbacks will result in a devestating loss of income for these workers, particularly those who are only part-time.

What these cutbacks will mean for patients are yet more operating theatre and bed closures, more people left lying on trolleys, cancelled operations, longer waiting lists and unnecessary  and increased suffering and even deaths.  

 

Previous protest rally against threatened closure of Lifford Hospital

The INMO General Secretary, Liam Doran has claimed that the cuts being implemented are being "imposed in a manner which is unsafe" and are a result of the Croke Park Agreement between the Dublin government and ICTU on public pay reform.

Speaking on Tuesday he said that patients  "are entitled to quality assured services when they need them and public patients cannot be treated like second class citizens when compared to those who can afford private healthcare at this time”. 

He added:  “The INMO voted against the Croke Park proposals primarily on the basis that they require 6,000 posts to be taken out of our health service in a haphazard, uncontrolled and unplanned manner with scant regard for the impact upon patients and their needs and requirements.  We are now seeing the real impact of this flawed approach."

Sligo General Hospital

And while people are rightly horrified at these latest plans to cut services in our hospitals, even worse is set to follow.  In the upcoming budget, Health Minister Mary Harney is seeking a further cut of €600 million off the health budget.  Unless they are forced to halt these cutbacks and actually invest in creating an efficient first class health service for all, we will very soon be left no public health service at all.

This Saturday (August 7) a march and rally has been organised in Letterkenny, Co.Donegal to protest against the HSE's proposed cutbacks.  The march, which will commence from the Station roundabout in the town at 12 midday and proceed to the hospital, has been organised by the newly formed Save Donegal Health Services campaign group.  


The group is comprised of the three main health care trade unions, INMO, SIPTU and IMPACT.  Other groups involved include the Irish Kidney Association, Donegal Action Cancer Campaign, Friends of Letterkenny General Hospital, Co-operating for Cancer Care North West and the General Voice of Older People Donegal.

Health Cuts Protest Lifford

éirígí are urging people throughout the north west to attend Saturday's protest march in large numbers.  The HSE and their political masters in Leinster House need to realise and to see that as a community we are sick and tired of the savage cuts being imposed on us, at the same time as they bail out the banks to the tune of tens of billions of euro and as they feather their own nests and that of that of the wealthy business elite.

The people of the north west and the people of Ireland deserve a first class public health service properly funded, resourced and staffed.  It is our right, not some privilege to be dispensed at the discretion of overpaid and uncaring politicians who are intent on dismantling it and privatising it in order to make profits for their cronies within the business sector.  

Once again, the message is clear. Fund our hospitals, not the banks.

No Private Hospitals – Fund our Public Hospitals: Health Crisis is "Deliberately Manufactured"

The most recent General Purposes meeting of Sligo Borough Council on July 19 heard proposals to build yet another private hospital in Sligo. Planning permission has been sought to develop the hospital on a site just off the N4 at the Summerhill Roundabout on the approach to the town centre.

This is the third such proposal in recent times. Last year it was announced that plans are underway to build a  €50 million private hospital right next to the existing Sligo General Hospital, while plans are also afoot to develop another such hospital at Carraroe.

Site of proposed new Private Hospital

All of this comes at a time when services at Sligo General Hospital are being slashed with further savage cutbacks already on their way.  Last year seen a dramatic reduction in services, including the removal of vital Cancer services to Galway, the downgrading of the Stroke Unit, the shutdown of wards and the closure of 78 beds.

The figures for the number of people left waiting on trolleys in Sligo General Hospital betweeen January and May of this year stood at a staggering 876.  Compared to the same period in 2007, the figure has more than doubled, up a massive increase of 419 people from 357.

As previously reported here, the Regional Director of Operations for HSE West John Hennessy confirmed in recent weeks that this year the Hospital was facing a budget deficit of €12 million and would mean new cutbacks which he admitted would impact on essential frontline services and would include yet more bed closures.  Amongst the measures he indicated were on the way were a ban on purchasing  equipment for the remainder of 2010 and the introduction of 5-day wards.

In the latest development at the hospital, staff were informed on Tuesday (July 27) that another eleven nursing positions were to go, a move that the INMO (Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation) have said will have a "devestating impact" on essential frontline services.  According to the INMO spokesperson, the proposed cuts would decimate services at the hospital.

Impact trade union have said that among the other measures to be implemented by the HSE will be a further 60 bed closures as well a significant reduction in drug stock levels.  The HSE are also planning to alter the fixed term contracts of 25 employees.  According to IMPACT, in some instances this will result in workers having their weekly hours reduced from 35 hours to as little as eight hours per week

Reacting to the HSE's plans, IMPACT's Richy Carrothers has said that among the many areas affected will be essential radiology and oncology services.   In relation to the cuts in workers hours he said that "a reduction in the number of working hours, on the scale proposed, would devastate the lives of these workers."

He added:  “Reducing working time to just eight hours per week would mean that these workers, who are engaged in delivering vital services in the North West, could not earn a living wage, and would have to join the other reported 3000 public servants whose incomes are so low that they would have to claim family income support (FIS) from the state.”

Further north at Letterkenny General Hospital, the news appears to be even worse.  It is believed that up to 120 jobs are to go as well as the closure of the hospitals orthapaedic ward and it's medical rehabilitation unit.  Day services are also set to be reduced and all elective surgery is to be cancelled for the remainder of this year.

Responding to the latest proposed cutbacks and HSE nationwide figures which reveal that around 2000 nursing and midwifery posts have been lost since the introduction of the moratorium on recruiting nurses and midwives, the INMO described the current situation as "unsafe and unworkable".  The end result of this ban on recruitment is "longer waiting times for public patients for services, overcrowded hospitals with less inpatient beds, overworked staff and increased risks to both patients and staff" according to the INMO. 

At Belmullet District Hospital in County Mayo, the recruitment ban has resulted in ten of the hospitals forty beds lying idle as they have not the staff to cater for them.

Now the Dublin government, and Mary Harney in particular, are flagging up even more savage cuts in health care in the upcoming budget.  According to Harney the budget cuts in Health will be "substantial" and have "serious consequences for the health service".  This weeks Sunday Tribune reported that those cuts are likely to be as high as €700 million.

Once again, not only will patients suffer  and indeed die from the reduction in quantity and quality of service, but Harney has also revealed that the HSE would be focusing on changes in work practices and conditions within in the health service.  If the government get their way, it is front line staff, already  dangerously overworked and overstretched due to previous cutbacks resulting in increased workloads, who will have their already inadequate and unacceptable working conditions worsen.

And we know our health service is in deep crisis, but it is a deliberately manufactured crisis, one created by deliberate political decisions taken by successive Fianna Fáil led administrations.  What we have witnessed in recent years, and this blog has repeatedly reported on, has been the systematic stripping down and removal of services from Sligo General Hospital and other hospitals around the country.

This has not been accidental or forced upon the 26 county government by forces beyond their control.  Make no mistake about it.  This is ideology driven, pure and simple.  It is part of a deliberate strategy of running down the public health care system and increasingly privatising all aspects of health care, including our hospitals.

Fianna Fáil and the Greens are using the current economic crisis, brought about by a combination of greed and corruption by the wealthy political and business elite as a smokescreen for implementing these cuts and their real agenda, which is about privatising the public healthcare system.

 
Despite the Dublin government's claims, there is no excuse for cutting funding and services for hospitals. The money to properly fund our health service is there, only they believe spending tens of billions on bank bailouts and up to €10 million on bringing the English Monarch here, are more important than spending on people's health - well on working people's health anyway.

At the time of last years budget, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan attempting to justify his savage cutbacks said that there was "no pot of gold that can be raided from the wealthy that can solve our difficulties”. What he said then was untrue and remains so today.  The business elite in this country, who amassed billions of euros on the backs of workers throughout the so-called 'Celtic Tiger', remain wealthy individuals.  Indeed, despite the economic recession, the richest people in this country have got even richer.

There are also hundreds of billions of euro worth of oil and gas lying under the seabed off the Irish coast, the rights to these resources shamefully given away to multi-national corporations such as Shell, by previous Fianna Fáil-led administrations.  Those natural resources could and should be nationalised at the stroke of a pen.

Yet Lenihan and his cronies in the Fianna Fáil/Green Party coalition have taken deliberate political decisions not to nationalise these natural resources and not to make the rich pay.  Instead they are content to reduce the incomes of low paid workers and welfare recipients and slash essential health and education services.

So is there a solution?  Of course there is - but that solution is not in private hospitals. They have no place in the provision of health care. Private companies mean a hospitals priority is creating profit for shareholders, rather than patient care.

Private hospitals and private health care are also clearly not in the interests of working people, both those that use and need our health service and those that work within it.  Ironically the site of this new proposed private hospital is located adjacent to St Joseph's private hospital, the owners of which, the Mount Carmel Medical Group, in the past week have claimed an inability to pay redundancy in the region of €400,000 as recommended by the Labour Court to their former workers.

St Josephs Hospital

What we currently have in this state is a form of medical apartheid.  Those who can afford to pay, get their treatment when they seek it.  Those who cannot afford to pay are forced to endure lengthy waiting times for treatment that they may need right away.  The increased numbers of people waiting more than three months for a colonoscopy  (see here for previous story on Colonoscopy waiting lists) is just one example of how an essential procedure that could save a persons life is denied for lengthy periods to those who cannot afford to go private.  The end result of these delays for many people is quite often completely unnecessary suffering and death.

This two-tier apartheid system is completely unacceptable and needs to be dismantled immediately.  Health care is a basic human right - not a privilege - that must be free, easily accessable by all and must be completely under public control. Patients must be treated based on their medical need, not their ability to pay as things currently stand.