Yes, Minister. Hospital units are of more use when they’re open

THE announcement this week that €85 million has been allocated to open new hospital facilities and take on extra staff, could have been in a script from an episode of Yes, Minister.

For months, if not years, all these spanking new units were standing idly by with as many patients as you would find evidence up trees in North Dublin - which is none. They’re rather like Martin Cullen’s €50 million worth of computers for the electronic system debacle - unused.

All over the country, €400 million worth of idle hospital units are sterile, as useful as an election promise.

It beggars belief that a state-of-the-art accident and emergency department can be built at a cost of €16 million but remains closed because the Government won’t fork out a mere €3 million, as is the case in Cork University Hospital.

As many as 15 patients a day are on trolleys in the existing A&E department and staff and patients are forced to work in an area one-third of the size of the new unit.

That was completed last November and comprises the first emergency paediatric treatment unit for children, a new radiography unit and a special resuscitation facility.

Almost 12 months later, it hasn’t been graced by a patient because the money wouldn’t be provided for staff, and even if it was, there’s a ban on public sector recruitment, anyway.

Both Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Health Minister Mícheál Martin, said, without blushing, that the Government decided not to open the idle hospital units before the June elections because they would have been accused of trying to buy votes.

This must be a first for Fianna Fáil because they have a long record of buying votes.

After the devastating results for the Government from the local and European elections, they probably bitterly regretted not having stuck with a successful formula. And 2,000 phantom gardaí can’t all be wrong.

The party obviously does regret their break with vote-buying tradition, because now there’s money to open all those units and take on an extra 1,200 staff. I hope the odd doctor and nurse will be employed to help out all those administrators who are so vital to our health service.

Realising that hospital units are far more beneficial to people when they’re open rather than closed, has nothing at all to do with gearing up for another general election, but a new concept for Fianna Fáil called a “social agenda.”

It was something which Minister Martin referred to one time, in expressing his belief that, with the economy recovering, it was time for the Government to focus on its social agenda.

“The revenues for the future are showing a greater degree of buoyancy and I think we now have to focus on health, education and social welfare,” he said.

I doubt if the Government would recognise or understand a social agenda, as all those idle hospital units prove.

And isn’t it amazing that projects such as equestrian centres costing €15 million didn’t have to wait until revenues showed a “greater degree of buoyancy.”

Maybe a problem with buoyancy might explain one extraordinary turnaround. Fianna Fáil promised to increase the number of people with medical card cover by 200,000 before the last General Election. But the number covered actually decreased by 55,000 since then.

What the party did recognise, however, was the backlash from those elections last June, and it dawned on them that the protest meetings that were held all over the country in the lead-up to the local elections demanding that the same facilities be opened meant something.

Fianna Fáil’s social agenda is akin to George Dubya’s hypocritical attitude to weapons of mass destruction. The pretzel president of the US of A doesn’t want them in the hands of foreigners, but it’s alright for the folks at home.

It must take some convoluted thinking - if that’s the right word - to parade to the world a campaign against terrorism, yet not renew a 10-year ban on the private use of assault weapons.

The 1994 ban, brought in by Bill Clinton, covered 19 different types of military assault weapons, including AK-47, Kalashnikov and Uzi rifles, as well as high-capacity ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds.

It was passed after a series of shootings in US schools and fast food restaurants.

It expired at midnight last Monday when Republican legislators, who now control both houses of Congress, refused to schedule such a vote.

The mental plane on which US President George W Bush exists can be illustrated when he said he supports the ban but he was not prepared to pressure Congress to extend the prohibition, thereby upsetting the powerful National Rifle Association.

According to opinion polls, the majority of Americans support the ban and several police chiefs have expressed concern over its repeal.

So now, ordinary citizens will be entitled to keep powerful assault weapons in their homes, which means more Columbines could happen.

Certainly, Americans are no longer quite as safe on their own streets as they were before the Republicans made powerful weapons available again for every nutter who wants to change the world.

The National Association of Police Organisations is now backing his presidential rival, John Kerry, who has correctly accused Dubya of choosing “powerful and well-connected friends” over police officers and families he had promised to protect.

“George Bush chose to make the job of terrorists easier and make the job of America’s police officers harder, and that’s just plain wrong,” said the Democrat contender.

Whether it will influence the race for the White House or not, the Dubya camp could have done without the statement from United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday.

He confirmed, not for the first time, what most other people believed from the start, that the US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter. He said the decision to take action in Iraq should have been made by the Security Council, and not unilaterally.

In an interview with the BBC World Service he said that “painful lessons” had been learnt since the war in Iraq. “Lessons for the US, the UN and other member states. I hope we do not see another Iraq-type operation for a long time - without UN approval and much broader support from the international community,” he added.

It’s a bit late for Iraq and for the innocent victims who had paid dearly for American and British arrogance.

It was most considerate of Michael D Higgins to make himself “available” to run for our own presidency, especially since his own Labour Party had a leaning towards supporting the Green’s Eamon Ryan.

It might be indicative of how in touch with reality he is when he said he did not accept that President McAleese was unbeatable and that he was “up for” a debate.

I honestly don’t think that Mary McAleese even faintly has to worry about handing over the keys of the Áras to Eamon Ryan, Michael D, or Dana Rosemary Scallon in the event of a contest.

It will be a pity if there is no election, but the attitude of the major political parties to the presidency is more concerned with pragmatism than our democracy.