Irish Election are pleased to announce our collection of Irish 
The Naughton Letter to the Michael Martin in 2002 re: Breast Care in Portlaoise
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“To me, services for cancer patients are worse now than they were seven years ago in the midlands”…
“I am writing out of a deep sense of despair and frustration…I have written to senior management about seven times in the last two years…outlining how we would deal with the problem…all to no avail”
James Reilly of Fine Gael has sent around a copy of a letter sent to then-Minister for Health Micheal Martin in 2002 by Peter Naughton, a consultant surgeon in Portlaoise outlining his concerns about the quality of care in the Midlands. As you can see above its damning stuff. I have uploaded the full letter to the website here.
Considering the nature of three speperate reports into the mess yesterday (and the lack of head on a plate for the opposition), O’Reilly claims a consistent cover up in the Department with regard to sub-standard services. In a sense he is right, that more than one letter was sent in the period from 2001-2005 and neither Martin nor Harney admit to having read them suggests a massive failure of the department to respond to those on the front line, whose knowledge is first hand, on an impending crisis.
Any of our regular readers will know that some of our own bloggers have been caught up in this – to the extent where a womens health campaign Two Tits and a Vote was launched recently (see Inside Out podcast with Sabrina).
Yet for many the resignation of Ministers and/or Drumm represents no real improvement, it was the arcane system below them which was complicit in the tragedy of cancer care in the Midlands in the 21st century. While they were representative as the figure heads of the department, resignations need to mean more than a change of job for the incumbent – they need to mean a full and frank admission that the HSE is not the panacea it was presented as and that every single sinew of government will be aimed at organising, restructuring and opening up our health service in a manner befitting of a nation in our current condition.
Great post.
Allow me, if I may, to link to a post of my own which contains the text of an article written for the Irish Times by Fintan O’Toole when the shortcomings of the cancer screen program first came to light.
It is well worth the read.
For some time it has been obvious that the root cause of the current mess in Health lay with Micheal Martin, who dissipated his time, as Minister of Health, pursuing his mission to abolish smoking.
This one-trick-pony ignored all the serious issues, which on a daily basis were being presented to him.
In his negative, missionary zeal, which has had a modest success, he failed to address far more serious issues, ignoring good advice and plunging on, headlong, trumpeting his mission at every possible opportunity.
He got his way; the licensed trade is in tatters, young people still smoke, albeit in freezing condition in the street and the revenue from excise duty has plunged.
A Pyrrhic Victory.
Mary Harney, in contradistinction, has done a terrific job, applying herself, with total commitment and enormous energy, in trying to clear up the mess that took place on Martin’s watch.
Time to own up & Bertie Ahern might exercise a little more support for his present Minister of Health and stop covering for up for the likes of fellow Fianna Failure, Micheal (All Mouth) Martin.
A bone head incompetent with or without the fada.
What I can’t get over is seeing Harney speaking on Prime Time tonight (why does she get to be interviewed away from the studio, is she the Queen of Ireland now?) saying that the cancer services today are not adequate or safe, but magically they will be after “the plan” is implemented. So she has been over a decade in a government that according to her did essentially nothing and left us today with cancer services that are inadequate and unsafe. I acknowledge that running the economy is a big and important job but we have ministers with specific areas of responsibility for a reason so the government can do more than one thing at a time. Instead of reforming and changing the health service FF and the PDs just throw money at it because it was the easy thing to do and we had more of it than they had expected. I did the post below in November I still think it is relevant.
http://dansullivan.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-someone-has-to-resign-mary-harney.html
The damage was done on Martin’s watch.
He was warned of the problem, on several occasions – and did nothing.
Mary Harney has been trying to clean up his mess since she took over.
Martin is just like Cullen; O’Rourke; Bertie Ahern & Woods.
Fianna Fail has produced a stable of incompetents that ought never to have been given ministerial positions.
They just don’t have what is necessary – skills; competence & common sense.
All wind & piss – like the Barber’s Cat!