No more white coffins – let’s cure the system

IN recent days we have seen the heartrending pictures of parents of an innocent child carry their hopes and dreams in a white coffin because we are told there is a shortage of nurses working in intensive care for children.

It is difficult not to be moved by such images and then we have seen virtual forests cut down so that politicians can tell us of the wonderful policies they propose for improving our health service.

But there is still no improvement despite all the money thrown at the health system.

Now we have innocents dying because our inefficient system of delivering healthcare can't adequately care for our most vulnerable children.

It is time our politicians woke up before any more tragic pictures of children being carried in white coffins appear in the media.

No child should have to die because our healthcare system lacks the efficiency required to deliver the services needed.

As a nurse educator I believe it's too easy just to say that a shortage of nurses resulted in the death of Roisín Ruddle.

This statement in some ways links the death to nurses when the reality is that an overall healthcare system failure is what has really happened.

Paul Horan,

Lecturer in Nursing Studies

(Intellectual Disabilities),

School of Nursing & Midwifery Studies,

The University of Dublin Trinity College, St James's Hospital,

Dublin 8