Public hospitals are not at breaking point, they’re past that... This is the 'New Normal'

Cancer patient Martin McMahon reveals how the inequalities of an ailing health system that is 'beyond broken' impacts the sickest and most vulnerable

'Competition for beds is fierce, as much in the private hospitals as in the public, although for entirely different reasons.'

Frank’s long weekend started early. It was only Tuesday and he was already in his comfortable hospital room which was to be home for the next few days. My long weekend has been coming for years, it began and ended face down on the hall floor on Thursday, not able to move.

I haven’t seen Frank since I was a child. My memory is that he’s a big man, grey hair, strong as an ox in mind and body. A retired member of An Garda Síochána, in his 80s now, a man who did his duty in every sense of the word. A country man who remained a country man even though stationed in the Dublin suburbs most of his life. His wife, every inch his soul mate, minds him now. Like many older people, they’ve been locked-in since Covid started. Brief glimpses of freedom to live out normal days crushed as the figures they heed, the figures most ignored by the rest of us, keep rising. Older people are dying at or with (it doesn’t much matter anymore), Covid.