Madam, – Eamon Timmins puts his finger on one half of the problem in his response to the article on the withdrawal of day-care services to elderly patients in Boyle, Co Roscommon (March 18th).
There is no doubt that some HSE decisions defy all logic. Withdrawing cost-effective services and driving elderly people into an already stretched hospital sector is a form of madness that is both economically unsound and socially unacceptable.
The half of the story that Mr Timmins missed is the reasoning behind such a decision, if reasoning is the right word for something so patently mindless. The only possible explanation has to be that this policy decision was made by individuals who not only do not value elderly people in society, but who actually want to destroy their quality of life by treating them in this manner.
I will stand corrected if Minister for Health Mary Harney can come up with a better explanation for this incredibly stupid HSE decision. – Yours, etc,