Madam, - So Mary Harney wants the consultants to work longer hours than the night and day hours they do work. She should look nearer to home. Look at the Dáil sessions with the dozens of empty seats we all witness - a handful of TDs and Ministers present, the rest all absent, drawing big salaries, enormous expenses, big cars, all for six months work. What consultant gets six months' holiday? How many consultants will have two weeks off this Easter?
She wants to appoint 1,500 new consultants. They will need support. She could start by replacing the 3,300 beds the government closed in the 1980s; add to them the beds we need for our increased population, including our immigrants. She will need nurses - those angels who "do" vomit and bedpans, and who work night and day. She would need to pay them better; make them "permanent" instead of permanently "temporary" with no pensions and sick pay, so they flock to other countries. She will need to build more theatres, have more registrars, radiographers, haematologists, pathologists.
Prof Drumm wants the patients sent home quickly from hospital, as they are in England; but there they have first-class district nursing and home help services. Prof Drumm says we have plenty of beds - are we on the same wavelength? He is a good man, but "God didn't make his back for the burden".
One area that should be improved immediately for all patients is access to diagnostic procedures, eg endoscopy, colonoscopy, brain scan; no one should have to wait more than two weeks for these.
We patients would like to thank the consultants for their hours in the attic studying and their years of training and practice to reach the high standard they have today. - Yours, etc,
JOAN LEAHY,
Shelbourne Road,
Limerick.