HEART BEAT:First floods, now ice – just don't expect the State to react
“And then there came both mist and snow
And it grew wondrous cold
And ice, mast high, came floating by
As green as emerald"– (Samuel Taylor Coleridge – The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)
I AM getting a bit like the Ancient Mariner. I remember things and insist on sharing them with others, even if I miss the warning sign of the HA’s eyes glazing over.
I remember the last freezes/snows. I remember 1947 as a time of endless snowball fights, slides and snowmen. We lived in the outdoors and had a ball. Our prayer was that the snow would stay as long as possible. Our elders did not share that view.
It was a time of open fires and setting the chimney alight; somehow my father was always responsible for that. It was a time of single glazing, ice on the window panes, bed socks and stone hot water bottles. It was a time for a version of ice hockey on a frozen Booterstown Marsh. It was wonderful.
I remember 1963, when I was an intern and the nights in AE were full of broken bones and seemingly unending work. I recall patients on the wards with erythema ab igne, a kind of discoloration over the front of the legs, essentially a chronic burn and caused by people, almost invariably women, huddling up to open fires. It of itself meant little but when combined with varicose ulceration could cause major healing problems. I suppose it is now a diagnosis of the past. I was becoming aware that the minuses of winter wonderland far outweighed the pluses.
This was further driven home to me in winters in Birmingham during senior registrar years and reinforced during time spent in Rochester, Minnesota. In 1982 while en route to the American Association for Thoracic Surgery in Miami, I was trapped in a hotel in Dublin Airport for three days by snow.
Strangely enough on all these occasions, in different places we coped; presumably people were doing their jobs and ensuring that the rest of us could move about to do ours. Some days it was difficult and it was easier to stay in hospital. Such difficulties never seemed to last very long. Somebody was responsible for keeping the show on the road. In most places somebody seems to be responsible for just about every aspect of the functions of society. Not over here; it’s always somebody else’s job and the fault lies elsewhere.
I watched the Taoiseach with Mr Gormley and others give an unconvincing press conference about measures being taken to deal with our present weather emergency. This was three weeks after the weather pattern that had been forecasted became established. It was the usual Lehman Bros defence. It’s worse elsewhere. It’s not our fault. It’s the Opposition’s fault because they control the local authorities. It’s God’s fault.
Mr Gormley is now the “Snow Czar” and he tells us that the local authorities should primarily report to the Minister for Transport. They might, if they could find him, but he’s on holidays. So now we’re left with the Snow Man. The Chief Elf is somewhere in the background. May God help us; because essentially this means we’re on our own. Mr Gormley tells us that they’ve concentrated successfully on keeping the primary roads open. I’ve travelled through Ireland in this time and while technically the main roads are usually clear, in parts they are lethally dangerous. Mr Gormley also told us that his department had made a great success of dealing with the recent flood disaster. This is an almost pathological detachment from reality.
I have just returned from an invigorating stagger on the ice with the HA, praying that I don’t break something and earn a place with the more than 400 other citizens waiting on trolleys in our grossly overworked and under- resourced public hospitals.
With staggering ineptitude, the HSE chose now to downgrade the AE in Kerry General Hospital. The department is now to be staffed between 10pm and 8am by a clinical nurse manager. Emergencies during this time will be dealt with by consultants (who won’t be there anyway) and skeleton night cover medical staff from other units in the hospital.
One month ago, the HSE stated that services in Kerry would not be reduced. This was pledged in the Review of Emergency Departments and Pre-Hospital Care in Cork and Kerrypublished by HSE South. So they lied or misled or had mental reservations, depending on how charitable you are prepared to be in the face of such deception. Keep the faith. We'll be rid of them some day.
- mneligan@irishtimes.com