Dear Editor,
The real truth is being proven once again – patients in Ireland don’t matter, but animals do. The Greens and this Government put an end to deer hunting, as it causes distress to the deer. However, removing acute health services from within reaching distance of humans is okay and acceptable.
Forcing sick people to travel to distant hospitals for treatment; forcing patients to attend hospitals that are overflowing already; forcing them to lie on trolleys in corridors while hospital beds lie idle in Monaghan; forcing the elderly and the young to go to strange environments with strange carers miles from home; forcing people to accept an advanced paramedic as an alternative to A&E and then doubling the area to be covered by that paramedic, thus putting more people at risk — these are all ‘better services’ and totally appropriate methods of providing health services, according to this Government and their experts. Such treatment would not be acceptable for animals and the Greens would be first to say so.
This is the Green Party that gave assurances in writing to the people of Monaghan prior to the last election that it would ensure services were not downgraded in Monaghan General Hospital. This is the Green Party which is so concerned about carbon footprints and emissions, yet makes the people of Monaghan drive further and further to access acute health services in distant hospitals.
This is a Government that listened to experts, yet allowed this country go into meltdown economically. This is a Government that will bail out banks, building societies and developers, but not sick people.
Yet the people of this country are more concerned about wildlife and hunting, or so it seems from the amount of time that has been spent discussing deer hunting in the Dáil and in the media.
Meanwhile, the health services continue to blunder along. Services are removed from Dundalk, exposing the people of Carlingford and the Cooley Peninsula to serious risk at times of emergency. Monaghan has already suffered that fate, but we did not get the ‘better services’ that we were promised.
The Government spins us the contested theory that volume of work will ensure better outcomes. There have been too many lives lost needlessly and extra trauma and suffering for us to believe the Government, the Minister, the HSE or the ‘experts’.
The people who are making these decisions and making others implement them are untouchable, lacking in accountability and have no mandate from the people of Ireland to do what they are doing, and the Government hides behind them.
We need a Government that will take control of the affairs of this country and make decisions that will benefit people first and, when that is done, we can then look at the animals.
In the meantime, we issue a warning to the people around the country whose hospital is being downgraded and who are being promised ‘better services’: the promises will not materialise. So be prepared to sit and wait, as others will have travelled long distances to get your bed.
Peadar McMahon, Monaghan Community Alliance
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