Government must act on health crisis

THE report into the tragic death of two-year-old Róisín Ruddle, whose heart surgery was postponed, is yet another damning indictment of Ireland’s shambles of a health service.

The country’s leading children’s hospital has come in for scathing criticism, and rightly so, for its inaction in recruiting intensive care nurses.

To its shame, the Department of Health was aware of nursing manpower problems in the area since the mid-1990s but yet the problems persisted.

If the life-saving operation on little Róisín had gone ahead at Crumlin Children’s Hospital in June 2003, her chances of survival would have been greatly enhanced.

Parents everywhere shared the anguish of Róisín’s parents, who watched their child die within hours of being sent home after surgery was postponed.

The Government must deliver on its promise of a first-class health service to ensure such an appalling scenario never happens again either in Crumlin or any other hospital.