Commenting on the increase in hospital admissions over the Christmas period, she stressed that although the immediate crisis had passed, the problems still remained. In fact, she claimed many of these problems have increased, people still had to travel to places like Cork, Dublin and Galway to get treatment and that waiting lists were getting longer. When we enquire about the difficulties being encountered by ordinary people trying to access the medical and surgical services we have to decipher a lot of verbal nonsense to arrive at the reality that the services are not available without a long wait. We are constantly being advised that the service being enquired about needs extra funding and support services and that an application is being made to the Department of Health. We are regularly and consistently told about the plans for the future, the amount of money being provided to upgrade buildings and equipment.
People have to wait for an appointment and then have to wait for treatment if that is the outcome.
During this period which is being taken for granted by Board officials people are suffering pain exacerbated by the anxiety caused by not knowing when they will finally get into a hospital. Behind all the statistics are real people suffering real pain. That is what the service providers seem to be forgetting. Describing treatment as elective seems to make waiting acceptable. She claimed that people who had Voluntary Health Insurance weren't suffering the same delays because of the two tier health system which the Department had allowed to develop over the years.