The worst recovery in history
Friday, shown to the type of polypropylene chair beloved of town halls for public meetings, and told by a charming but seriously stressed nurse to wait there, that the doctor would be in on Monday.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation( INMO), in its Trolley / Ward Watch analysis, recorded 7890 patients on trolleys in December 2016— a 29 % increase when compared to December 2015.
On 7 th March 2017, the INMO counted 517 patients on trolleys in Emergency Departments or‘ on beds, trolleys or chairs, on inpatient wards / units above the stated complement of that ward / unit’.
Trolleys Wards Total Eastern 106 9 115 Country 268 134 402
Total 374 143 517
Add to this the familiar list of complaints to which the Government is persistently hard of hearing:
‣ a chronically low level of overworked, underpaid, and under-appreciated front-line staff but ever-increasing numbers of expensive managerial staff
‣ waiting lists that shame us all while increasing the cost to us taxpayers of treatment because of the deteriorating health of those waiting
‣ and a denial of desperately needed medicines to sick patients because of cost with the predictable result of increasing the work-load of front-line staff...
... and we have another perfect storm. Could this possibly be the time to cut taxes?
The worst recovery in history
Let ' s be clear, the advantages of wealth are not and have not been trickling down. In fact, more accurately, wealth is trickling up.
We, the taxpayers, subsidise private hospitals to which the majority of us have no access, and that allow the higher-income earners to skip waiting lists, improve their recovery rates and times, and take increasing advantage of preventative medicine.
We subsidise private schools to which the vast majority of us have no access but whose students are over-represented in our universities. And because they are over-represented in the universities, they will be over-represented among graduates. They will disproportionately fill the various professions, take up a disproportionate number of places on corporate boards and government-appointed quangos, and provide a disproportionate number of Dail members and government ministers. In short, those students to whose education costs we the taxpayers contribute will be over-represented among the leaders and power brokers of the future.