Sir, - The Minister for Health recently went on public record denying that there was any shortage of beds or resources at Tallaght Hospital. This will be news indeed to the many patients left lying on trolleys while awaiting a vacant bed in one of the hospital's wards, or to those waiting up to 12 hours for treatment in the lottery of the casualty department.
My mother is just one of many such victims of the callous neglect of the nation's health services. After suffering a stroke she waited eight hours in casualty before seeing a doctor and then spent a horrendous night on a makeshift trolley until a bed became available. (Some of your readers, I'm sure, have far worse horror stories they could share.)
I'd like the Minister to explain to my mother, a PRSI contributor all her life, how this constitutes an adequate level of care for seriously ill people at a time when the State coffers are overflowing with a £3 billion Budget surplus. I trust that if and when serious ill health strikes the Minister, he will be quite content to entrust himself to the "adequate resources" of the health service. - Yours, etc.,
Dermot McGrath, rue du Seminaire de Conflans, 94220 Charenton-le-Pont, France.