There is no mystery when it comes to the crisis that is the health service in the 26 Counties, there is only policy, spin, and propaganda.
In 1996 the population was 3,626,087 and the stated hospital bed count was 11,397.
In 2022 the population was 5,123.536 with a stated hospital bed count of 11,337.
An increase of 1,497,449 in population
A decrease in beds by 600.
A massive decrease of 600 beds and the comparable numbers in medical staff and ancillary staff for an increase of 1.5million in population.
This means that for every 1,000 in population the beds in hospital have decreased by 33% , from 3.3 to 2.2.
This is not an accidental decrease in bed capacity or staff numbers for an ageing population but a policy instigated decades ago for a two tier health system, while this has been a quietly stated preference for those in power little real or direct action has been taken to prevent the long term damage this is doing to our population and hence our economic stability as a Nation.
Health and education are the driving force of all economy’s, you need a strong healthy vibrant workforce to generate product, but you also need an educated innovative workforce to develop the production processes, the decades long policy to force the health service into decline is now showing the reality of this, our young emigrate, our sick and elderly are left to suffered for days on chairs and trolleys in crowded corridors, with a depleted exhausted medical staff unable to cope with the necessities of care required.
During the Covid 19 Pandemic surges private hospitals made millions in payments to facilitate bed capacity, this in reality was an exercise in political profiteering with all the party’s claiming a success in health care, today after the airwaves of reactionary radio stations are filled with the anguish of patients afraid, and in some cases death while awaiting treatment delayed by Government policy we still see a two tier system under construction, the HSE are owed millions of Euros in back payments for health care by Private insurance companies, staff are attending food banks for support, patients are dying on chairs and trolleys, and the Free State Minister fiddles while Rome burns, the Minister who initiated the HSE as a means of ending this ongoing debacle back in 2005 Michel Martin now having just stepped down as Free State Taoiseach smiling all the way to his Ministerial pension!
With a potential strike by the harassed and undervalued medical staff on the horizon we must all think to the future and support the pay and conditions so desperately needed by all within our health services and prepare for the much needed campaign to end the continued policies that have lead us to where we are now!