DECISION TO TRANSFER CANCER SERVICE AN “OBSCENITY”

The Government decision to persist in transferring the excellent breast cancer services from Sligo to University College Hospital Galway is an obscenity and should not be tolerated by the people of Sligo or Galway, said Galway City councillor Catherine Connolly, when she addressed those attending the Connolly Forum’s annual Easter 1916 Commemoration Ceremony in Sligo on Easter Sunday.

Led by Flag-bearers carrying the Tricolour and the Plough and the Stars, those participating in the ceremony marched from Cairns Drive to the Republican Plot in Sligo cemetery to hear the former Galway Mayor deliver the oration. A small number of Garda Special Branch officers observed the proceedings

“For freedom to have any real meaning in the 21^st century Ireland must have a public health system based on need and not greed and profit.” Cllr Connolly said.

“Currently the ‘Dynamic Duo’ Professor Keane and Minister Mary Harney wish to make Galway a centre of excellence and in the process destroy a centre of excellence in Sligo. In so doing they ignore key telling features that characterise UCHG and make it impossible for it to be a centre of excellence.

“Currently it is impossible to get any precise figures on the overall number of beds in UCHG. The figures provided by the HSE have varied over the past two years from as low as 517 beds up to 670 beds.

“Moreover, the constant confirmation at meetings of the Regional Health Forum, that wards and beds remain closed and/or unoccupied for ‘cost containment’ purposes together with nursing vacancies remaining unfilled makes a mockery of the concept of a centre of excellence.

“In addition to bed and ward closures the figures for the various specialist waiting lists remain extremely high. There are now over 27,000 patients waiting for either in-patient or out-patient treatment for periods up to five years. These figures have been confirmed over and over again in response to questions I have submitted at meeting of the Regional Health Forum” Cllr Connolly said.

“On any given day there are between 20 and 40 patients on trolleys in the public corridors of the Accident and Emergency department of the hospital due to the lack of beds. While outside the hospital the public car park cannot cope with the present capacity of the hospital and this has been acknowledged by the City Council and the public generally to be a disaster.” said Cllr Connolly.

Cllr Declan Bree, who presided at the ceremony, said “We live in a time when there is a deep cynicism and a significant distrust of politics and everything associated with political and economic life in this country.

“In an effort to bailout the banks and property speculators and to prop up the establishment, our National Pension Fund is being raided and squandered. Those who control political and economic power have put their own survival first and will attempt to make not only the present generation but the next generation pay for that survival by putting the county in pawn to international bankers and finance houses.

“The establishment of the National Asset Management Agency is nothing more that a means of shifting the burden of debt from those individuals and institutions that created the present crisis onto the backs of the ordinary people of this country.

“Of the €1.8 billion to be raised in taxes from the Budget €1.4 billion will come from PAYE workers.

“In fact the present situation has all the appearances of a criminal conspiracy among the ruling elite to make working people pay for the deepening crisis. Clearly Fianna Fail and the political and economic establishment believe that the public purse is their own piggy-bank, for them to dip into as often as they see fit. No wonder IBEC has called on ‘citizens to rally in support of the budget’.

“While the Government can find the money to bail out bankers and speculators nothing can be found for cancer services, for our public health services, for special-needs teachers, for disability grants, or to repair run-down schools.

“The hairy old chestnut of ‘we all did well under the Celtic Tiger - so we all must bear the burden and the responsibility for this crisis’ is simply not true, no matter how many times they spin it on the television or across the airwaves.

“Instead of bailing out the banks the government should have nationalised the banks and repudiated their debts.” said Cllr Bree.

Following the oration as a lone piper played a lament, Ms Brenda Barr, laid a wreath on behalf of the Connolly Forum and Mr Brian Scanlon laid a wreath on behalf of the People’s Movement. The ceremony concluded with the National Anthem.