Nothing has been learned from the death of Susie Long, who died because of hospital waiting lists, the widower of the mother of two, Conor Mac Liam, said yesterday.

The sad, lonely death, in a Dublin doorway, of John Corrie, the 43 year-old homeless man who died yards from our parliament, is symbolic of many things wrong in our world, but for anyone to suggest they are shocked by such an inevitable tragedy just adds a shameful and offensive layer of hypocrisy to the charge sheet already faced by this society.

A charity for children with life-limiting conditions has given its complete backing to a new petition calling for all seriously-ill children to automatically receive medical card help.

The widower of Susie Long, who died trying to reform Ireland’s two-tier health system, has claimed Health Minister James Reilly’s plan for universal health insurance is the polar opposite of what she wanted.

When she died, aged 42 just five years ago, Susie Long, highlighted the divide in our health systems.

SATURDAY

In no particular order or weight ... Paul Brady, Henry Shefflin, Myrtle Allen, Saoirse Ronan, the Gulf Stream’s micro climate, Seamus Heaney, Fiona Shaw, Martin Hayes, Graham Norton, the Society of St Vincent de Paul, Rory McIlroy, Olivia O’Leary, Connemara, the Delphi and Blackwater valleys, Julie Feeney, John Hume, Lyric FM, Michael Noonan’s unflinching, selfless resolve at a moment of great personal tragedy.

ABOUT half of the population is covered by private health insurance but the proportion is falling.

WITH more than 1,800 patients waiting three months or more for a bowel cancer test, little has changed since Susie Long died of the disease, her husband said yesterday.

THE family of a woman whose death following a late cancer diagnosis touched the nation has accused retiring Health Minister Mary Harney of leaving a legacy of “broken promises”.

ANNOUNCING staggering increases — up to 45% — in health insurance premiums the very month budget cuts plunder families’ wage packets and child benefit, VHI chief executive Jimmy Tolan said yesterday that Ireland’s health insurance market was broken.

SO we owe €50bn and we all now cry victim.

WITH more than 1,000 people waiting more than three months for a colonoscopy, the Irish Cancer Society (ICS) has urged people to avail of the procedure under the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF).

More than 1,000 patients living in fear of having bowel cancer are waiting more than 12 weeks for a colonoscopy, it emerged tonight.

ONE of our great failures is that our health system does not treat us all equally.

THE VHI’s 1.5 million customers face an increase in charges of 8% next month.

THERE are worrying signs that waiting times for bowel cancer tests are starting to creep up again, the Irish Cancer Society said yesterday.

HEALTH Minister Mary Harney was accused of “abdicating her responsibility” after claiming she had nothing to do with the awarding of a €70,000 performance bonus to HSE chief executive Brendan Drumm.

THERE was nothing good about the health service in 2007 upon which HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm could justify his claim for a bonus of more than €70,000, Fine Gael’s health spokesman Dr James Reilly has said.

HEALTH Minister Mary Harney defended the controversial €70,000 bonus paid to the HSE chief executive Brendan Drumm, saying he “does a fantastic job”.

PLANS to reconfigure cancer services under the direction of cancer ‘tzar’ Prof Tom Keane have angered a number of hospital consultants, among them cancer specialists.

CELEBRITY lawyer Gerald Kean, invited by the Health Service Executive (HSE) to grill its top managers, believes he was approached because he is an outspoken critic of the health service — and not because he “likes a good party”.

ALL urgent colonoscopies will be performed within a month of referral by the end of this year, Health Minister, Mary Harney, said yesterday.

The Government is coming under fire from the opposition follows revelations about the amount of time some public patients are waiting for a basic procedure to diagnose bowel cancer.

The country’s top medics tonight launched a withering attack on the Government’s health strategy branding the Health Service Executive cowardly, incompetent and arrogant.

THE Health Service Executive spent yesterday trying to cut e1 billion from their budget. This will mean sick people will be denied services or at the very least have to wait even longer for attention.

WE have learnt how powerless we are when international financiers loot and pillage like privateers rather than bankers worthy of trust or respect.

Tens of thousands of people are expected to join a mass rally in Dublin today to demand improvements to the public health service.

ORGANISERS of a rally for better healthcare being held in Dublin this weekend will be disappointed if at least 70,000 people do not turn up to demand better health services across the country.

SINN FÉIN TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin launched a stinging attack on Health Minister Mary Harney, describing her as the “wrecking ball” of the health service.

YESTERDAY a Nigerian, who has been charged with trying to sleep naked in a crib in the Redemptorist Church in Limerick on December 29, was remanded to prison following an assault in a hotel where he was accommodated by the State.

JUST as the warning to the Health Services Executive about defective cancer screening equipment at Portlaoise began to slip from the frontline of public consciousness another tragedy predicted by health professionals has come to pass.

The Labour Party is accusing the Government of failing to learn from the Susie Long case and exacerbating the two-tier nature of the Irish health system.

The crisis surrounding breast cancer services in the state was tonight branded one of the blackest chapters in the recent history of the country's health system.

FOLLOWING the breast cancer debacle in Portlaoise and the recent death of Susie Long, it is great to see the Irish people’s sense of outrage has not diminished and they have taken to the streets — shopping for Christmas.

SUSIE LONG died from colon cancer.

WE write in the aftermath of a death foretold, the unnecessary death of a young Kilkenny mother from cancer.

BY THE time Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has nominated members to each of the 23 Dáil committees named yesterday virtually each and every Fianna Fáil deputy will have a seat on one — whether they deserve it or not.

THERE’S a justifiable anger in the air about the untimely and unnecessary death of Susie Long from bowel cancer due to the seven-month delay in getting a colonoscopy because she could not afford private healthcare.

Minister for Health Mary Harney has admitted that the health service failed a young Kilkenny mother who died last Friday.

AFTER a couple of weeks of clear, blue skies, the mists started to fall yesterday and we found ourselves back in familiar climatic (more like bloody anti-climatic) conditions.

THE health system failed a cancer patient who won massive public sympathy by speaking about her seven-month wait for treatment to RTÉ Radio’s Joe Duffy talk show, the Taoiseach last night told the Dáil.

IT IS unimaginable that in Ireland a mother of two might die at 41 because of she did not have private healthcare insurance, yet that is what happened to Susie Long, who was buried yesterday.