Arthur gets a cat scan of healthcare system

Who says there's a crisis in the health service? Last week, the youngest member of my family, Arthur, was alarmingly ill. Normally perky and mischievous, he became so listless he could hardly lift his head. His usual curiosity was replaced by a complete lack of interest in everything. He wouldn't eat and it took a huge effort just to get him to take a few sips of water.

So we took him to the hospital. He was seen at once by calm, unflustered, unexhausted medical staff. The doctor who examined him wasn't able to say straight away what was wrong with him, so he was put on a drip and kept in for tests. For all the media hype about overcrowding, there was no problem finding a bed for him. All those prejudices about the uncommunicative nature of the medical profession also proved to be completely unfounded. Forget all that nonsense about having to call the hospital for news and being left hanging. Never mind the whingeing about the lack of information you hear incessantly from patients and their loved ones. Get this: they called us!

Within a few hours of being admitted, Arthur had a blood test, and the staff had called us with the reassuring results. As long as he was kept in, indeed, they phoned twice a day, to report progress, tell us what they planned to do next and ask for our permission to proceed.

Nor was there any difficulty or delay in getting whatever tests he needed. He had X-rays and blood tests. He was even tested for AIDS. Whatever had to be done was done at once and the results were available within hours. Thankfully, all the big tests proved negative. What he had was just some kind of virus. After three days on a drip, he was discharged and returned to the bosom of the family.

All of this, you may be thinking, must be privileged treatment provided at great expense. But even though Arthur wasn't covered by the VHI, BUPA or, indeed, by the State, his three days in hospital cost just £158. We got an itemised breakdown of the bill: £13 for a consultation; £40 for X-rays, £30 for biochemical tests, £15 for haematology, £23 for two lab tests, £28 for three days of intravenous fluids for his drip, £15 for hospitalisation at £5 a day, and £14 for medication.

This is not the kind of money you drop casually and don't bother to pick up, but for skilled care and scientific testing, it seems very reasonable. Certainly, nothing like the kind of inflated sums we're often led to expect in medical bills. And we discovered that Arthur can have comprehensive medical cover for just £45 a year.

Arthur is home now, and slowly but surely he's coming back to himself. With a bit of luck, he should soon be out in the garden chasing the birds and the bees, lying back to have his tummy stroked, and prowling around the backyards and alleyways of the neighbourhood at night. I wonder if he knows how lucky he is to be a cat and not a human being.

Last January, as it happens, I developed symptoms very similar to Arthur's. I got the flu, became dangerously dehydrated, collapsed and cracked my head open. My wife drove me to the casualty department of one of the major Dublin hospitals. And you know the rest.

Sitting, bleeding for ages, until I involuntarily jumped the queue by collapsing again. Finally, getting into the casualty ward only to find that all the cubicles for patients were not merely full, but that each area for one patient already had two in it. Hard-working, highly-skilled staff, looking harassed, depressed and overwhelmed - and only too willing to confess that they hated the work and couldn't wait to get out. The merely sick being shifted off trolleys to make way for the dangerously ill.

The medical advice was that I be kept in overnight, but after a few more hours on the trolley it became obvious that no bed would be available. Faced with a choice between a trolley amidst the bedlam and going home to take my chances, I made my excuses and left.

Now I'm relatively young and pretty healthy and the experience did me no real harm. But the vast majority of the people in the casualty ward that day were old and frail and scared and in pain. Watching their distress and the struggle of the nurses to give them the kind of comfort and care they so urgently needed would make any sentient being much sicker than a virus could.

This reality surfaces now and then in the broader public consciousness. Politicians campaigning in this week's by-election in Tipperary, for example, have been inundated with shameful stories of old people dying on trolleys or having to be sent home, not for medical reasons, but purely for lack of space.

Basic services for cancer patients, especially if they live outside the main cities, are a disgrace. Waiting lists for many operations in the public system are so long that we now take for granted years of unnecessary suffering for people without money. Frontline medical staff - nurses and non-consultant hospital doctors - are stretched beyond endurance.

I'm reasonably fond of cats and the contrast between Arthur's experience and mine reinforced my long-held belief that our feline friends are the real masters of the universe. And even though I might be tempted next time I'm ill to go down to the veterinary hospital, I'm not actually suggesting that the human health system should be handed over to the vets.

But isn't there something just a little grotesque about the contrast between the kind of treatment Irish society can manage to provide for domestic animals and the way we're currently treating pensioners and the poor when they need medical help?

Maybe it's time those at the sharp end of the system stopped demanding human rights and settled for animal rights instead.

fotoole@irish-times.ie