Our health crisis - Yes Minister, it’s time you were gone

ENOUGH is enough, it’s time for our Health Minister Mary Harney to resign.

The game is absolutely and utterly up and there’s no need for any more extra time.

No more ifs or buts, no more wait and sees, no more consultants’ reports, no more negotiations stretching over years about who can change light bulbs.

No more talks about talks that make the 300 Years War look like a three-minute visit to a peep show.

No more letters in the post telling women — and their families — to put Christmas on hold as their cancer tests must be repeated because they were done on a 15 year-old machine and dust got on the film.

Hundreds of women assessed for breast cancer via ultrasound in Portlaoise are in a similar position this morning after yesterday’s by-the-way revelations at a Dáil Committee hearing — but no-one had told them as of yesterday.

It was revealed that 568 ultrasound tests are being revisited, 391 have already been reconsidered and of these 97 merit further assessment. That these unfortunate women heard of their situation via a Dáil Committee hearing is offensive and utterly unacceptable.

No more MSRA, no more reports telling us what we already know — that not one of our 51 dirty hospitals could register a “very good,” that 35 could only be described as “fair” in the basic cleanliness stakes.

No more Michael Neary’s and, most especially, no more Susie Longs, who died because of our immoral system, the one that gives you a chance if you have insurance, otherwise ...

And as we’re at it, it may be time to listen to people whose achievements give them impeccable credentials — people like Maurice Nelligan, who point out that the creation of a privatised, two-tier system through the Trojan Horse of co-location will only make matters worse. When someone like the retired Dr Nelligan, the epitome of calm and circumspection, refers to our health minister as the “Avenging Angel” then you know you’ve got problems.

It’s time to acknowledge that whatever Ms Harney’s many qualities might be they are patently not those needed to replace our dysfunctional, dispiriting and divisive health system with a modern, equitable, efficient or even a half decent one that treats all of our citizens as sick people when they are sick — whether they are insured or not.

No matter how patient, no matter how supportive you might like to be of Ms Harney and her “closer-to-Boston” policies there comes a time when to persist with a discredited system is no longer an option.

Fine Gael’s Dr James Reilly and, indeed, Ms Harney’s government colleague deputy Mary O’Rourke, articulated the outrage felt all across the country on this issue yesterday when they said they were shocked and outraged. So are we all.

Like it or not Minister, the buck stops with you and it’s time you were gone.