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PLANS ARE BEING put in train for a mass ‘day of action’ in towns and cities across the country as part of a new national campaign set up to battle healthcare cuts in the nation’s hospitals.
The nascent National Hospital Campaign had its first meeting at Dublin’s Red Cow Inn at the weekend, at which the first members of an organising committee were put in place.
Meath TD Peadar Tóibín, who initiated the campaign, is describing it as a “cross party, cross community effort” aimed at fighting cutbacks in healthcare, particularly those in front-line services.
“Everyone who attended on Saturday agreed that campaigns need to stand together on this one — unless we do, it will be far easier for the Government to target and pick off services one by one in different locations”.
Representatives from campaigns to save hospitals in Bantry, Navan, Louth, Monaghan, Roscommon and the specialist St. Luke’s cancer facility in Dublin all attended the first meeting of the group on Saturday.
TD for Roscommon and ‘Reform Alliance’ member Denis Naughton also attended, while former Labour MEP Nessa Childers has lent her support to the campaign too.
Tóibín (a Sinn Féín TD who is currently suspended from the party) said he had received support from members of eight other campaign groups around the country, and that he hoped more representatives would be able to attend the next meeting, planned for 1 Feb in Portlaoise.
“The plan is to enlist the support of the unions, groups representing the elderly and so on, so that this really is a cross-community effort,” Tóibín said.
“What will happen between now and April is that the local groups will carry out their own efforts, holding meetings locally and spreading the word. That will all culminate in the first week of April, when the plan is to hold between seven and ten mass rallies around the country on the same day.”
Each campaign group taking part will have three representatives on the central organising committee, Tóibín said. Further possible campaign tactics will be discussed at the next meeting on Saturday fortnight.
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This is a chance for all citizens to show their anger, get up off your arse and do it!
My husband was recently very nearly a victim of the front line health care cuts.
If he had had his massive heart attack one hour earlier, he would have been administered an injection to stabilise him (which in itself has a high percentage chance of causing a stroke), and he would have been transported via emergency ambulance to Dublin, which is over 2 hours away. Asking the doctor later he asked what would have been his chances of survival had that happened, virtually nil was the reply.
No admissions to the coronary intensive care between midnight and 6am.
O’Reilly is killing people with these unnecessary cutbacks.
Ladies and gentlemen it’s now or never, get to FCUK off your arse for one day and show this bunch of lying greedy conmen and women that run this kip what we think, and a message to the garda it might be time for a blue flu day otherwise ye will be stuck on €10 per hour for a long time,
I earn more than double that so I’m grand.
Your sound so, just hope it pays for a private hospital because the way this lot of clowns are going there will be only 4 or 5 public hospitals left
You better believe it does.
So just some Socialist Party rent-a-mob then.
All the rabble rousing.. None of the solutions.
The solution is not to kill our own citizens by cut backs Mitch. Would have thought that was a fairly easy message to understand? Doubt Denis Naughton would thank you for calling him a socialist. But I guess it is easier to stick a label on people when they make you uneasy.
Hypobolic bluster.
Still waiting for a ‘real’ solution.
Not the socialist/communist party fantasies.
I’d agree calling people worried about their hospital services “rent-a-mobs” is only bluster at nothing else.
The closure of hospitals will also force ambulances to travel further to other hospitals to deliver the patients.
Ambulances are to be on scene within 18 min 59 sec for time critical patients 70% of the time is what the NAS is striving for. Bad news if you are the 30% that is not reached in time.
Other issue is that it is possible to get the 70% if one is living in a city but much harder if one lives in rural Ireland. The problem is that they will average it out and despite not being able to achieve anything near 70% in rural Ireland when it is averaged for the region, they have achieved 70%.
I would not blame the paramedics as they are already overstretched due to cuts, the use of “rapid response” vehicles that cannot carry patients to hospitals. as well as other factors. The closure of hospitals increases the travel time to other hospitals and this is not good for time critical patients when it takes longer for an ambulance to get out to them and then have to travel to a distant hospital.
As one of the NAS bosses told us “That is the price that one pays for choosing to live in rural Ireland”.
We did fight the HSE and the NAS when they wanted to cut ambulances from 4 to 2 during 12 hours of each day and replace them with no patient carrying capacity for the whole West Cork region which is larger than many counties.
After putting pressure on them through rallies, media and much writing they decided to back off.
Some cuts do kill and perhaps they should consider making cuts where they wont affect the well being of the people who pay for the service in the first place.
Our first rally is on the link below. Thanks all who attended on a very cold and wet wintry day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru3PsAsX_-Q
Enough is enough!
Its really a complex thing for consumers http://www.medicassistancescheme.co.uk/
have your say