New A&E still closed - Yet another HSE scandal

THE almost daily stories of scandalous mismanagement of our health services are so spectacular that they are unlikely ever to become so run-of-the mill as to fail to generate outraged responses.

They are classics of blundering and of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. At the moment there is a kind of ceasefire, acknowledging that there is a process of “reform” in place and that “we are on the cusp of something special in our health services”, according to Health Minister Mary Harney.

But even that ceasefire is jeopardised by yesterday’s news that more than a year after its completion, a €5 million A&E unit at the Mercy University Hospital in Cork remains closed because of a €1m shortfall in staff funding.