Fund our Hospitals, Not the Banks

26/05/09

The previous seven days has seen resistance increase to the Twenty-Six County government’s ongoing attacks on the health system.

Trade unionists, hospital staff, community activists, political activists and ordinary citizens have come together, holding protests in Sligo, Kerry and Dublin.

The Dublin government, in particular health minister Mary Harney, have been leading an incremental attack on the public health care system since 1997. This attack has had, at its core, the gradual dismantling of public healthcare and its replacement by private operators.

Harney, using the political cover of the Health Services Executive [HSE], has closed public wards in favour of private wards, provided public land for private healthcare facilities, offered lucrative tax breaks to the private health care sector and, more recently, imposed a total ban on recruitment to the already under-staffed public healthcare system.

In effect, the government’s aim appears to be the complete privatisation of the public healthcare system. If successful, this would alleviate the government of billions of euros worth of investment. Simultaneously, it would consolidate the existing scenario, whereby the wealthier elements of society live longer, healthier lives, while working class people live shorter, unhealthier lives.

Resistance to this process has come from many quarters, and actions from protest rallies through to industrial action have taken place. Last week saw three significant actions in different parts of the country, all demanding, in their own way, a cessation to the attacks on the public healthcare system.

On Friday [May 15], nurses from the Killarney Community Hospital staged a one-hour strike against attempts by the HSE to abolish the director of nursing post. The removal of this post would ensure a downgrading in the status of the hospital and possible funding decreases.

Wednesday [May 20] saw the entire contingent of staff nurses at Sligo General Hospital on a one-day strike. The strike was called after the HSE announced that 19 temporary nursing staff, representing 10 per cent of the workforce, would be released from duty, as well as cutbacks in patient services. This is despite the fact that the hospital remains chronically understaffed. The nurses, in defiance of HSE threats, have planned further action if an emergency hearing of the Labour Court later this week bears nothing.

In Crumlin, Dublin, hundreds of protestors attended a march against cuts in service to one of the main children’s hospitals in the city. The envisaged cuts would see the closure of 25 children’s beds, the possible closure of another ward, a reduction in outpatients’ appointments, the closure of one theatre from July–December and the closure of two theatres for the summer months.

éirígí activists participated in the protest, alongside members of the local community, hospital staff, trade unionists and other political activists.

éirígí spokesperson Daithí Mac An Mháistír said: “The closure of a single public hospital bed should be considered an outrage. But the proposed closures of 25 beds, an entire ward, and the reduction of services is nothing short of despicable. The fact that Mary Harney and the Twenty-Six County government are making this attack against the most helpless section of our society – our children – is yet another example of their disregard for basic human rights.

“Access to quality, free healthcare is a human right. That right must be extended to every citizen, not just those who can afford to pay.

“The protest in Crumlin, and the actions taken by healthcare staff in Sligo and Kerry are not only justified, they are absolutely necessary. If we are to prevent the well-being of our children and our families being turned into nothing more than a for-profit business, then protests like these will have to increase.”