No cutbacks, Mr Cowen? Tell that to Patrick Walsh’s grieving family

So, who’s living in the real Ireland where protocol of a kind deems a man should die rather than unravel red tape?

During the week Finance Minister Brian Cowen declared to the world, but specifically to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), that “we’re not in cutback country yet”.

Aren’t we? Mr Cowen must have been in denial when he rejected suggestions that he would introduce cutbacks in December’s budget to ease concerns raised by the IMF.

At that stage, next December, the next general election in 2007 will be coming into view and the euphoria which the maturing SSIAs will generate hardly goes with the image of a country on the slippery economic slope.

In any case, there’s an election to be won.

Mr Cowen declared confidently that the country was in a healthy economic position, and it was wrong of some media to fuel speculation that cutbacks in health, education and social welfare spending would be necessary.

The IMF had suggested the Government should take steps to prevent potential overheating in the economy.

What the IMF probably didn’t realise was that steps have been taken already, unless, of course, you happen to be a computer consultant.

This is what Mr Cowen described as the Government continuing its “prudent” management of the economy in the land of no cutbacks. Tír na n-Óg, for short.

Exactly for whom they are prudently managing the economy is debatable because it’s certainly not the average member of this society.

The family of Patrick Walsh, the 75-year-old who died needlessly at Monaghan general hospital would violently disagree with our complacent Finance Minister about the absence of cutbacks.

They have absolutely no doubt that he was denied surgery because of hospital cutbacks.

They said he suffered a death “no animal would be allowed endure”.

What an incredibly sad epitaph for anybody. Of course, it won’t be inscribed eventually on Mr Walsh’s headstone, but his family and everyone who would dissociate themselves from this contemptible FF/PD conglomeration knows the truth of the matter.

Patrick Walsh was allowed bleed to death from an ulcer in one of the richest countries in Europe because the hospital operating theatre was directed to keep office hours.

There would be no question of a protocol had the Taoiseach or Tánaiste become seriously ill near Monaghan general hospital and desperately needed the skills of the medical personnel who were available at the time.

Mr Walsh’s death became all the more poignant when the Tánaiste, Health Minister Mary Harney, admitted that a bed was, in fact, available for him in Cavan, although doctors had tried and failed to find a bed at three other hospitals in the region.

And not just one bed. There was another available at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, according to the head of the Health Services Executive, Prof Brendan Drumm.

In hindsight, 20/20 vision is tragically useless to the late Mr Walsh or his devastated family.

Ms Harney has since said that an external review of the circumstances surrounding this case will be undertaken by a Belfast-based consultant surgeon.

The fact that it will take eight weeks seems out of all proportion when it’s glaringly obvious that what has to be done is what all the consultants in Cavan and Monaghan have called for: the restoration of acute emergency surgical services at Monaghan.

The response by Prof Drumm to that was to issue a challenge to anyone to produce an expert who would state there should be five acute hospitals to service a population of 300,000.

This country is bedevilled by experts, and you don’t need one to tell Prof Drumm there is something fundamentally wrong with the system he’s in charge of which let a man die unnecessarily.

He went on to lecture politicians to start thinking beyond local issues and focus instead on what was best for people’s health.

He was right about one thing: the HSE was responsible for the death of Patrick Walsh. But he was utterly wrong about something else: his defence of the Government’s role in this avoidable tragedy was simply incomprehensible.

HIS HSE has to accept responsibility, but responsibility cannot stop there.

It stops at Bertie Ahern’s desk. His Government invented the HSE, which is not autonomous, but carries out policies approved by the Minister for Health and, therefore, the Government.

Unless, of course, Ms Harney hasn’t a clue what’s happening in her own ministry, but that is most unlikely.

As Patrick Walsh lay dead because of our amazingly decrepit health service, a senior doctor in a Limerick hospital was in prison awaiting deportation to Nigeria. Gardaí arrived at the hospital and arrested him for deportation on foot of an order issued by the Department of Justice.

His offence? His papers were not in order. The Irish Medical Organisation had never before heard of a doctor being removed from a hospital in such a manner.

Obviously, there are problems between the HSE and the Justice Department which can result in this heavy-handed ambush policy.

There are about 3,500 non-EU doctors in this country, and appalling as our so-called health service is, it would be worsened considerably if they were all arrested and sent home.

Surely the HSE and the Justice department should have the wit to come to some sensible arrangement about visas for suitably-qualified and registered doctors, without having them deported. It isn’t as if the country didn’t need them.

Ireland’s status as one of the richest countries in Europe just might be related to a report also published this week suggesting that corruption in business has been on the increase here over last 10 years.

Transparency International is a leading anti-corruption group, and it put the country down eight places from 11 to 19.

It suggested that the Government needed to do more to tackle corruption in order to improve perceptions of the country by business people overseas.

Apparently, Ireland has not ratified the UN convention on corruption, the objective of which is to eradicate bribery, embezzlement and money-laundering.

We’re all blue in the face from listening to the claim from various Government spokespersons how this little country is one of the wealthiest in the EU.

I wonder is there any connection between that and the fact that we lag behind most other EU countries when it comes to corruption in business.

For the first time ever Transparency International, whose Irish board includes former Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald, intends to conduct an in-depth assessment of Irish anti-corruption laws.

That shouldn’t take too long, although it should provide a few laughs as to how seriously white collar crime is taken here.