FG leader wants drunks out of A&E — what’s so unethical about that?

FINE Gael leader Enda Kenny said recently that his party in Government would get drunks and their hangers-on out of A&Es, hit the pockets of those who are abusing the system and make room for patients who are genuinely deserving of treatment.

This is an eminently sensible proposal, and the response of the Government parties was a testament to this.

The Junior Minister for Health, Tim O’Malley, who is a PD member was quick to denounce the idea as “a perversion of medical ethics”.

Given that the PDs are completely out of touch with the people, Enda Kenny could hardly have hoped to get a more ringing endorsement for his proposal. Fianna Fáil, a party that usually knows a good idea when it sees one, have not criticised Kenny’s proposal.

In fact, on RTÉ’s Questions and Answers, Brian Cowen explicitly refused to criticise the Fine Gael plan when invited to do so. His silence spoke volumes.

I cannot imagine how anyone could find themselves opposed to that plan. According to Mary Harney, the A&E situation is now a ‘national emergency,’ and yet her party colleagues seem to have no problem with the fact that vital A&E beds are being squatted on by people whose only ailment is a weekly dalliance with the demon drink.

Meanwhile, people with serious problems, many of them elderly, arrive at the A&E wards and are lucky to get a chair to sit on — let alone a bed.

The only “perversion of medical ethics” at play here is the sheer inequality in the system whereby people who are in danger of getting a hangover and a sore head are being put on a par with people whose problems may result in serious illness or even death.

The PDs’ repugnant belief that inequality is a necessary element in our society obviously blinds them to that fact.

Barry Walsh

Brookfield Hall

Castletroy

Limerick