Madam, - The capital cost of funding, properly, the required seven dedicated centres to provide care and treatment to young adults with cystic fibrosis, based on a six, single en-suite rooms, would amount to an estimated €35 million.
The allied cost to the Exchequer to adequately staff each of these units would be about €1.5 million a year.
This expenditure would make fiscal sense, given that the creation of these dedicated CF units would free up A&E trolley spaces (where CF patients are treated currently) and reduce the pressure on beds in wards.
Surely this is a win-win situation. So why isn't it happening? And why are young people with this debilitating and life-shortening illness compelled to take to the national airwaves and newspapers to highlight their plight?
On Morning Ireland last week Independent TD Finian McGrath told about the €2.5 million he secured for CF outpatient services at Beaumont Hospital, as part of his deal with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to support the Government.
This spending for his constituency is welcome. But it falls well short of the money needed to deal with the issue nationally. Could Mr McGrath's negotiation skills not have extended to a State-wide strategy for CF?
So fulsome was the TD's praise for Government Ministers generally and Minister for Health Mary Harney, in particular, for embracing the cause of people with cystic fibrosis that one might have been forgiven for believing the problem was solved.
That Cabinet members continues to preside over a health care system which fundamentally disrespects the predicament of people with cystic fibrosis is shameful. - Yours, etc,
GER PHILPOTT, Dublin 3.