Letters to the editor: Counting the cost of our system of healthcare

The Irish healthcare system is nowhere comparable to any of our neighbouring EU countries says one of our readers.

Our healthcare system makes me feel we live in a country in the developing world. I am wondering are any readers feeling the same way?

We are told our healthcare is costing €4,000 per head of population.

Well, well, well — who allows consultants and doctors to charge what they want?

Last month, after six months of waiting for an appointment, I finally received an official letter from a consultant’s “medical legal secretary” to inform me they had an appointment for me. It seemed there was no option for me to ask for a different date. So I took a full day off as I feared another six months of waiting if I did not make this appointment.

On the day, I drove the three hours to Dublin. I was finally allowed a five-minute consultation, for which I was charged €250. For this five minutes, I first had to go to my GP, through the GP’s secretary, then the consultant’s “medical legal secretary”, and all the while accompanied by a nurse the whole time during the consultation. This possibly in case I needed someone to hold my hand should I start
crying for my mummy during the consultation. I am only 45 after all. In total, five people to be paid.

Two years ago, while on holidays, I saw a consultant in France. Healthcare is free for French taxpayers. For this to work, the government sets the maximum fees doctors and consultants are allowed to charge.

As I am not a French taxpayer, I was charged the full rate of €36 for the consultant. And I was also charged €69 for an MRI scan.I selected my consultation appointment time and date from a list of slots available that very same week. I saw a total of two people through the whole process — a consultant and a secretary. I did not have to go through a GP, I booked my own appointment over the phone. No fuss, no mess, no waiting. All straightforward. I was in and out of hospital in less than 45 minutes, with MRI in hand and its contents explained to me. Not kept secret from me from doctor to consultant and vice versa.

The Irish healthcare system (or absence of, I should say) is nowhere comparable to any of its neighbouring EU countries.

We are an average Irish family; two working parents, two kids (one in secondary and one in third-level) a cat, a dog, and a mortgage.

As taxpayers, we are paying consultations for medical cards holders. The issue is not the medical cards, it is the fact that consultants and doctors are let charge what they want on these cards. Card holders do not care about the cost of their consultations as they are not paying for it. So the vicious circle goes on and on.

We taxpayers are paying for it. The two ways out of poverty for any country are: Free healthcare and free education. Unfortunately, Ireland has chosen to copy the American system for both. I fear for my children.

Helen Cronin

Rosslare Strand

Co Wexford

Anti-maskers are ill-informed online

An increasing amount of my friends are making comments to suggest that British and Irish government restrictions are “worse than the coronavirus itself” through the “immense psychological harm being wrought on society”, etc, because of the wearing
of face masks and the imposition of varying degrees of lockdowns.

As a shielded person with very low
immunity as a result of more than five years of chemotherapy for amyloidosis and post-renal transplant immunosuppressants, I received letters from doctors and the Government during the first lockdown with guidelines for people like myself.

However, these same critics point out that the figures for death of Covid-19 are inaccurate, and that probably only 12% of deaths in the UK recorded as dying of Covid actually died of it, comparing it to a situation in Italy based on a statement of the government chief medical advisor there. Although the death toll is claimed to be so low, I have heard the same anti-government critics cite nursing homes as ‘death camps’. One comment contradicts the other. Apart from citing the possibility of suicides due to the mental strain of living in such uncertain circumstances, the main concern from such voices seems to be about the economic life of the country.

There is a growing lobby attacking the concept of wearing face masks by calling them ‘muzzles’ and saying the Government wants to control individuals into submission, and “to create a fearful, pliant and submissive society” (to quote one article I read), rather than controlling the virus or trying to look after the interests of the people. Is that really such a hardship, to wear facemasks, compared to people actually dying with this disease, or is that being called into question too?

Many of my friends are reading things on the internet and saying the virus is a hoax and that I should just ignore the doctors and throw caution to the wind.

When I had my kidney transplant, the surgeons were wearing masks. This did not seem to cause me or the wearers any psychological harm, or lack of oxygen, as some others are claiming. I felt safer knowing their mouths were covered. Are anti-maskers suggesting that surgeons take off masks during operations as they are not scientifically proven to protect from anything and let the surgeon’s harmless saliva possibly drip into my open body? This seems to be what such activists are saying about wearing masks for Covid-19. My grandmother always used to tell me to cover my mouth when I coughed, and that “coughs and sneezes spread diseases”. Would she be attacked now, if she were alive, for asking someone to cover their mouth and nose in order to protect other people? Should we just cough and splutter openly, seeing as the risk is low, and no form of prevention will do any good anyhow?

Colin Nevin

Bangor

Co Down

Al-Akhras’ 100 days of hunger strike

I am writing to the Irish Examiner in the hope of getting the attention of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence Simon Coveney TD to highlight the case of the Palestinian leader Maher Al-Akhras, who has just passed 100 days on a hunger strike in protest at his administrative detention — interment without trial — by the Israelis.

If he is not released immediately, he will die.

Benjamin Netenahyu, the Israeli prime minister, will have to accept responsibility for the death of Mr Al-Akhras, just as British prime minister David Lloyd George was held responsible by public opinion in 1920 for the death of Cork’s Lord Mayor Terence McSwiney.

I am calling Mr Coveney as Minister for Foreign Affairs and as a Corkman to urgently and publicly call for the immediate release of Maher Al-Akhras.

His death will very likely be the torch that will ignite a conflagration in Palestine, just as Terence McSwiney’s did for Ireland’s fight for freedom.

John Bowen

Sunday’s Well

Cork

A cold wind could blow if Biden wins

If Biden wins, some strong winds blow across us.

1. Boris Johnson is left with no ass in his trousers. The US and the EU bring Britain to heel on Brexit.

2. Every successful politician has “a concept of himself”. Joe Biden’s “concept of himself” is pure “rust belt, NAFTA shafted us, remember the days when we built stuff at home, and we all had jobs”.

This could go badly for us. He grew up in Scranton and he is 78 years old. If elected, he will likely serve only one term. So he will only have one “100 days”. Everyone around him knows that already. They will devote a significant amount of emotional and political capital to “bringing jobs back home”.

That is a bad mix for us and our corporation tax rate.

I hate to say this (I hope he wins) but it’s probably a good thing he is losing the Senate.

Fascinating contest. Down to the wire — and the election lawyers are swarming like locusts.

The Republicans are trying every trick in the book.

Michael Deasy

Carrigart

Co Donegal

Polarised political landscape in the US

I’m tired of seeing all those US maps coloured in using red and blue only. Maybe it’s time for someone to give the children involved some new crayon colours to use. Then there might be less dummy spits, lies, threats and name calling and they can learn to share.

Lead by example but make sure it is a good example.

Dennis Fitzgerald

Melbourne

Australia

Hare coursing sullies Irish image

I understand that Ireland’s Heritage Minister Darragh O’Brien has ordered the release of all hares captured by coursing clubs during the pandemic.

Until I heard this I had no idea this cruelty was rife in Ireland.

Hare coursing was banned in England in 2004 under the Hunting Act.

My husband and I regularly holiday in Ireland, usually the west coast of your beautiful country, however, no longer whilst this barbaric so-called ‘sport’ is not banned.

Why does Ireland allow this barbarity to continue? This is not sport, it is animal abuse.

Make no mistake, this sullies your country. Get this ‘sport’ banned, your tourism will suffer if not.

Katherine Owen

School Lane

Wirral

Liverpool

England