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Defend our health service!
Michael Murphy

JOB CUTS AND BED CLOSURES

Our Lady’s Hospital for sick children in Crumlin was given €14 million less than it needed this year. Now, incredibly the government and the HSE have told them that they must cut €7 million more! This could mean up to 120 job losses and the possibility of bed closures.

CANCER SERVICES UNDER ATTACK

Patients in Sligo are travelling up to ten hours a day to receive 15 minutes of radiotherapy that is not available in the North West. Now there are plans to remove the cancer service in Sligo. The so called centres of excellence plan will mean all cancer patients will have to travel significant distances on a daily basis for treatment. Thousands of Sligo residents took to the streets in April to protest at this decision.

HEALTH SERVICES SOLD TO MULTINATIONALS

Fresenius, a dialysis giant have been awarded a multimillion euro contract by the HSE to treat Irish patients. This company was fined almost $500 million by the US Justice Department in 2000. This case broke all US Justice Department records for both criminal and civil fines.


Mary Harney speaking in support of cut-backs at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin said: “Remember we’re not in a situation where the budget is unlimited. Times are more difficult, the economic circumstances are such that there isn’t as much money for health that some people would wish.”

The above examples expose the government’s agenda on health - cut backs, privatisation and closure of local hospitals and services. After years of insufficient investment to repair the cut backs of the 1980’s the government are now using the economic down turn to close hospitals and out source services to for–profit companies which is not in the interest of patients and their families.

The government have been met with determined resistance throughout the country. Drogheda residents will take to the streets in June to stop the closure of the Dochas cancer centre in the Lourdes hospital. Over 200 people packed into the Westcourt Hotel in May and agreed to organise the demonstration.

The Dochas centre has treated over 600 cancer patients since it opened in 2002 including 115 new patients in the first quarter of 2008. Patients will be forced to travel to Beaumont if Dochas closes. Local communities in Monaghan, Roscommon, Sligo, Tralee, have marched in their thousands in recent weeks to defend their local hospitals and cancer services.

Despite the opposition the government have stood firm and are forcing their agenda through. Roscommon campaigners have correctly called for those who are opposed to the closure of their hospital to vote NO to Lisbon. All of us who are concerned at the destruction of our health service by this government should vote no to Lisbon as it will hasten the sell off of vital parts of our health service.

Voting no to Lisbon is not enough. A co-ordinated national campaign to link all the local campaigns such as Roscommon, Sligo, Drogheda and Monaghan together to build a national movement to defeat the government’s agenda of cut backs and privatisation is critical. The Socialist Party and others in the Campaign for a Real Public Health Service will be meeting with health campaign groups around the country in the coming months to discuss building and extending such a campaign.
Demonstration
Open the Mercy A&E and stop the cuts
Cllr. Mick Barry

The Cork branch of the Campaign for a Real Public Health Service has called a demonstration in Cork city for Saturday, 28 June to demand the immediate opening of the new A&E unit at the Mercy hospital (now idle for nearly a year and a half) and an end to cutbacks at the Mercy, the Orthopaedic hospital and the health service generally.

The demonstration (assemble Daunt Square 2pm) comes in the wake of a public meeting organised by the campaign in the Shandon Court Hotel on 15 May on the issue of the Mercy A&E scandal and other cuts at the hospital.

Attended by more than 125 people the meeting called on the Cork Council of Trade Unions (CCTU) to organise a major citywide health service protest in June.  Unfortunately, at their 29 May meeting the CCTU backed off from taking such a step and now the Campaign for a Real Public Health Service has taken the initiative.

The new €5 million A&E has lain idle for 17 months now due to cutbacks.

The existing A&E is overcrowded, dilapidated and has been condemned in official reports as not being fit for purpose.

The Mercy's HSE funding has been cut and the hospital faces a €4.6 million shortfall this year and has already closed the 31-bed St Catherine's Ward.

Real fears exist that the cuts at the Mercy could place a question mark over the future of the hospital in the medium term.

The Socialist interviewed SELINE BRADY, a mother of three from Churchfield on Cork’s Northside, about the cutbacks in the Mercy Hospital:

TS:  How many kids do you have, Seline?
SB:  I have three kids aged 15 and 8 and 1-and-a-half years.  The youngest, Rosaleen, has a heart condition called Wolff-Parkinson White Syndrome. When she gets sick her heart rate speeds up and she is in danger of cardiac arrest.

TS:  Have you had to bring her to the Mercy A&E often?
SB:  Six times so far. The staff are fantastic but the A&E is run down and overcrowded.

TS:  What do you think of the fact that the new A&E is still lying idle?
SB: Disgraceful. Unbelievable. That A&E would have state of the art equipment like heart monitors and its just unbelievable that the HSE won't give the money to open it up.

TS:  Are you concerned that the cutbacks might close the hospital down the road?
SB:  Yes. It takes 7 to 10 minutes for me to get to the hospital with Rosaleen. If I had to go to the CUH (Cork University Hospital) or the South Infirmary it would take half an hour. I don't want to be arriving at the A&E with a dead baby. It would take an ambulance as long to get to me as I can get down to the A&E on  my own. 

TS:  Are you supporting the Campaign for a Real Public Health Service campaign?
SB:  Yes.  We lost one hospital (the North Infirmary) and the politicians turned it into a big huge swanky hotel. We're not going to let them shut down another one now.