It's twenty to five on a cold winter afternoon and I'm in the casualty department of Beaumont Hospital. Well, not quite. Actually, after a wait of four hours nursing my left leg, which I injured in a fall, I'm still only in what some misguided optimist labelled the reception area.
The effect of the painkillers I took before leaving home (which seems a lifetime away) is wearing off. George Bush is on the TV high on the wall, with the sound off (the only evidence so far of sensible thinking) and I'm trapped in a queue of people as battered-looking as those shell-shocked Taliban prisoners we've seen lining up to surrender in Kabul. Sixty-two of us casualties (I've counted) are crammed into a small room, with some fortunate enough to have seats and others praying silently that they will soon vacate them, in what seems like a grim game of musical chairs.
Standing on one leg in a queue for 40 minutes is no joke - and that's just to get as far as the reception desk. Would an adequate supply of chairs be too much to ask for? The old woman next to me was put in a wheelchair - the last one, the nurse muttered apologetically, before hurrying off. I was eyeing it jealously, caught up in a ridiculous fantasy that she would soon be called to the phone and I'd be relaxing in it, with my foot up. Suddenly she spoke. "Would you mind very much pushing me as far as the toilet?" she said with a sigh. Is she having a breakdown? How could she ask me? Has she not seen my leg? I throw her a look.
Head wound
She has blood trickling down her face from a head wound, the sort of thing that would mean an instant replacement for Keith Wood in an international at Lansdowne Road. But in the casualty department at Beaumont, you're expected to be made of sterner stuff, whatever your age. There was no offer of quick stitches, nor even a face-wash.
I scan the packed room for a doctor, a nurse, a helper of any kind. There is none. Are we really expected to act as hospital orderlies while we wait to be patched up? The look of distress on the old woman's face provides its own answer. There is no one else to help. I grit my teeth, swing my good leg into action and steer her wheelchair towards the toilet.
Warped humour
Fifteen minutes later, I'm back in position and now fourth in the queue. In front of me a large sign reads: RESPECT PRIVACY. STAY BACK. The person responsible for that either has a warped sense of humour - or is stone deaf. We are packed together so tightly, I've already overheard enough to prepare about 60 personal case histories.
I'm now third in the queue, and Mary Harney has replaced Bush on the soundless TV set. I'm starting to appreciate the originality of the PDs' contribution to the new health plan. If they had sent me abroad for treatment, I could have been to Spain and back in the time I've spent in this queue - and possibly picked up a bit of a tan en route. Good thinking, Mary!
Suddenly, I'm there, gushing out the details of my fall to the girl behind the desk. Her eyes tell me how bored she is by it all. She cuts me short with a brisk: "Have you been here before - any medical card?" I shake my head. "That will be €31.70," she says, without even a glance at the currency converter on her desk.
I hand over the money. "Next", she calls. I'm dismissed. But now - guess what? - I go back to wait again in reception, five hours and 10 minutes after I arrived.
There are three trolleys in the room now, with people in various stages of collapse and children crying from boredom and exhaustion. An old man tugs at my sleeve: "Could you possibly get me a drink from the machine?" he asks. "I feel very faint. I suppose there isn't anything to eat."
Back to my role as unofficial orderly, I hobble over to the drinks machine. By the time I get back, a woman with a baby has taken my seat. I hand over the drink and stagger off, dragging my bad leg, in the hope of finding an empty chair.
A metal stick taps me on the shoulder. "Could you get that door for me, love?" asks a man encased in plaster. I'm at the back of the room, holding the door open for him, when I hear my name being called. I wave frantically, terrified I'll miss my turn, and set off at a half trot, dragging the injured leg.
The doctor spots me. He looks about 17 and, amid the chaos, he's smiling. Twenty minutes later, he's back with my X-rays. The smile has gone.
"A lot worse"
"It's broken, I'm afraid - and you've made it a lot worse," he tells me. "With an injury like that, you should be resting the leg. But you haven't been doing that, have you? You've been walking on it!"
I want to scream that you can't rest a leg when there are no seats, that you can't avoid walking when there is no one else to wheel a patient to the toilet, get someone a drink or open a door.
Is the Minister for Health, Micheál Martin, really aware of what's happening to the sick and injured, day after day, in casualty, the front line of the health services? Isn't it time he experienced it at first hand?
I was sorry to read recently that his colleague, Mary O'Rourke, had fallen and broken her ankle - but now I'm even sorrier that it happened to the wrong Minister.
For all our sakes, Mr Martin, break a leg!