This is no way to treat our children
THEY say that a loud voice can seldom compete with a clear one -- this is a point new Health Minister James Reilly should note. In opposition, Dr Reilly was a frequent flyer on the national airwaves, where he built a well deserved, no-nonsense reputation for pointing out the scandalous inadequacies of our dysfunctional health service.
Now that he is in the hot seat he has an obligation to make his actions speak louder than his words.
Yesterday, the minister told the nation he "welcomed" a damning report which shows that the three Dublin children's hospitals are significantly under-using their operating theatres.
Dr Reilly said it would be advisable to learn lessons about what is not working, before we move to a single paediatric hospital.
There were a few difficulties with Dr Reilly's approach, some of which will unnerve many who believed the new minister when he promised profound and meaningful change in his department.
Firstly, precisely why he chose to "welcome" what was a searing indictment of how our children are treated is perplexing in itself.
Equally odd was the fact that the minister had not yet seen the report.
Although practically all of its findings appeared to highlight a need for reforms in the planning and management of operations at Temple Street, Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin and Tallaght Hospital, Dr Reilly appeared to give the impression that this was all somehow positive.
The problem for parents of sick children is that they are weary of seeing their children suffering needlessly because of avoidable delays. They have seen too many reports compiled identifying glaring faults consigned to history's dustbin.
This one critically exposes the fact that Temple Street is under-using theatre time by 28pc, Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin by 28pc and Tallaght by 17pc. When it comes to caring for ill children parents already know that talk, however sincere, will not cut it. Dr Reilly needs to demonstrate exactly how he intends to tackle these and myriad other problems.
He faces a stern test to show that he can deliver where all his predecessors have fallen flat. He has vowed to radically change a department famously regarded as a graveyard of political ambitions.
Yesterday he was furnished with a 207-page report that amounted to a disgrace. It seems extraordinary that no hospital systematically operated a manual or computerised theatre management system. It also seems completely unsatisfactory that the hospitals used 'block booking' theatre allocation to a fixed surgeon and specialty.
This meant that if an operation did not happen on time, the operating slot was lost forever.
This seems especially reprehensible as current figures show that the waiting lists for planned operations for children at the hospitals are: Crumlin, 422 patients; Temple Street, 66 patients; and Tallaght, 42 patients.
Exactly what Dr Reilly found to welcome about such a dismal litany of failure is not easy to fathom.
A different kind of Easter
EASTER was traditionally a time for introspection, penitence, redemption and eventual renewal. At another time we would be aware of its arrival because of the rites and rituals that traditionally attend its coming.
These are different times, however. It is telling that we have come to a place where we have been told to look to the banks for "forgiveness," and it fell to the Dalai Lama recently to remind us that we are more than an economy, and that values are not something solely attached to the material.
There are those who might welcome the fact that the pulpit of the Catholic Church no longer casts such an imposing shadow over our society. There are others who might also argue that the baby has been thrown out with the bath-water.
They would contend that respect, trust, and compassion, characteristics that were traditionally heralded at this time of the year, seem to have been discarded.
This week we were given what many may regard as an uncomfortable look at how others see us. The Nyberg report on the banking crisis identified a "herd mentality" or "unquestioning consensus" where the blind pursuit of property cost us so dearly.
Whatever future should eventually be fashioned from the difficult circumstances in which we now find ourselves, a little more introspection and renewal would hardly go amiss. Happy Easter.
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