NO COUNTRY FOR SICK MEN

Ireland’s healthcare woes are being buried in political rhetoric. Can we avoid the perfect storm in healthcare, asks Dr Bertie Daly.

A PERFECT storm is an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically. It is also used to describe a hypothetical tornado that happens to hit at a region’s most vulnerable area, resulting in the worst possible damage by a hurricane of its magnitude.

Rather than becoming immediately embroiled in the emotional aspects of the difficulties we face, I would ask the reader to look at our medical needs objectively and dispassionately, in the first instance, and then to look at how we need to meet those needs.