The Politics of Envy

When you live in a society where cutting is almost a sacrament, It had to come to this. The “controversy” about funding the extension of Wexford General Hospital A&E is evidence of a new type of politics, where an austerity ethos  can be used to varnish reality.  So forgive me for throwing out a few facts to spoil the party or indeed the Sinn Fein or Fianna Fail party lines.

Wexford General Hospital annually treats over 33,000 patients at it’s A&E.  The A&E is housed in a converted pharmacy in the hospital since it was built about 20 years ago because funding at the time was not provided for the planned  A&E.  The A&E serves much of the county as well as Arklow.  I’ve brought my kids, pupils and neighbours to the hospital where I’ve nothing but praise for the hospital and its staff.

The failure to provide a proper A&E in Wexford has always been the hospital’s week spot.  In 2007 Wexford General Hospital was a priority for construction or so local FF TD John Browne told us at a meeting in Wexford in 2006.  When no progress was made on the matter another protest meeting and March followed in 2010.  All the time while Fianna Fail were telling us the project would proceed an application to extend Waterford Regional Hospital’s A&E to a capacity of 80,000 was going through planning. There was never a suggestion that the new A&E there would mean Wexford A&E would close as Waterford naturally had New Ross and Carrick on Suir in its hinterland and reconfiguration would see south Tipperary A&E being cared for in Waterford.  It’s a great pity that Sinn Fein & Fianna Fail are playing the old trick of playing one town off against another.  Unfortunately it is backfiring in Wexford and will back fire elsewhere soon enough.

During the 2011 General Election the single biggest issue in Wexford was the retention of the local A&E services.  Labour unashamedly campaigned to retain the services and to lobby for the A&E to go ahead.  The revelation that the hospital was not prioritised in the HSE capital program is a statement of facts that was common knowledge at the time, there is nothing new in what RTE’s “This Week” broadcast today.  The facts are the project went backwards when FF were telling us it was going ahead!

Secondly all this nonsense on the part of the Board of the HSE about not sanctioning the project until July 2011.  I was Mayor when the project was announced and was present at the announcement. So too was the senior HSE official who we on the council were told was in the lead in relation to the development work.  how do I know that he was in the lead? Because when the council wrote to the HSE looking to meet with it, the board referred us to the same official!!  In the picture above you’ll see Brendan Howlin cutting the ribbon on the new Scanner on the day he announced the A&E was going ahead.  Surrounding him are the Clinical Director and Hospital Manager.  Speaking on the rostrum that day was the senior official nominated by the HSE in relation to the extension work.   There wasn’t a sign of any stroke being pulled.  Perhaps the HSE may have internal communication problems?

 So here’s the rub make a promise on a campaign and keep it and Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail will clobber you.  On the other hand if you make a promise and don’t implement it quick enough the same parties will attack you for breaking your promise.

Secure and guaranteed

Nothing goes to the core of an Irish community more than the delivery of health care. Rarely is the health service out of the news. In the 80’s Fianna Fail shut many hospitals and the future of Wexford hung in the balance. That was until Brendan Howlin became a minister in 1992. In the new General Hospital facilities were greatly improved. However the advent of licensing for hospitals and changes in working time directives for doctors means that there is a growing pressure to change the hospital model for service delivery.
League tables of performance are the other side of waiting lists as the Irish love of medicine for profit and the consultant follows the money sees an inequity in access and outcomes in what is still one of the wealthiest countries in the world. So it was with a smile on my face that I left Wexford General Hospital last Friday. The occasion was the launch of the new CAT scanner which is one of only 4 in the country that will assess soft tissue in 64 different views! Not since the birth of my last child have I left the hospital in better form.
The reason? Brendan Howlin had once more done the impossible. He had saved the local hospital by announcing the injection of €20M into the hospital. The money will see extra beds for Accident and Emergency as well as a new maternity wing. This effectively secures the future of the hospital and allows the hospital do what it should be doing namely get on with providing first class health care to the people of Wexford.
As I pointed out to hospital management when staff are hit by salary cuts as well as lay offs the least that they should be entitled to is that hospital’s future is secured. It puts to bed the issue of the hospitals future and there are clear time lines. Tenders to be advertised and breaking ground by Autumn on a 30 month building project that will be opened in early 2014. Fair play to Brendan Howlin, he gave the commitment during the election to save the hospital and now he has delivered.

Wexford Hospital on life support

I’m shocked at the resignation of Dr Colm Quigley as as lead in the reconfiguration of hospitals in the south east region of the HSE. Earlier this week I met Dr Quigley at a meeting to set up a Community Alliance to support Wexford General Hospital. He didn’t convey the image of someone who was on the verge of resignation. So what has happened this week to culminate in his resignation?

A good old fashioned piece of journalism on the part of South East Radio. The leaking of a confidential document outlining proposals to downgrade A&E long with the planned transfer of maternity to Waterford Regional Hospital was a seemingly a step too far for Dr Quigley. The document set out that 2 hospitals in the region Kilkenny and Waterford would provide most of the regions general needs while Wexford would provide A&E cover on a 9-5 basis.

A&E is crucial to any hospital since most of the workload comes through the A&E department. For anyone in Enniscorthy, Gorey or Wexford the local hospital is the only alternative to a long drive to either Waterford or Lughlinstown. Dr Colm Quigley is a very strong advocate for Wexford and his role on the reconfiguration team did give a certain level of comfort to us in Wexford that the hospital would in some way have a future after services were reconfigured. Now all bets are effectively off and it seems that the gloves are quickly coming off and that just 1 week after the ending of Irish Rail services in to Rosslare from Waterford, Wexford is once more going to lose out.


The real effect of the resignation will be that morale among hospital staff will slump as Fianna Fail and the Greens stand back while Mary Harney and the Hse do their dirty work. The usual old guff about no cuts have been proposed and that money is ring fenced serves as the comfort blanket by government TD’s and councillors. The reality is that the reduction in HSE capital spending will mean that the service will be cut before the A&E in Waterford is built, an adequate ambulance service will not be in place to ensure that patients can access services and Labour will be left to clear up this governments mess.

Recently someone asked me will Labour force Irish Rail to re-open the Waterford rail line. I responded “Tell me what you want me to cut to provide the money?” That’s not to suggest I’m flakey on re-opening the line, I’m not. The wider reality is that there is so much damage done now it’ll take decades to undo the last few years of government.

Wexford walks tall on Demo Day

The sceptics got their answer today. There were those who said that the rally and march in support of the hospital would flop. There were those who would have loved to see the demonstration fall flat on its face today but in the end the people won out. Fair play to Seamus O’Brien and his committee who worked night and day to ensure a huge crowd turned out on the day.

There were over 5,000 on the march in my view. Because the streets are so narrow its hard to get a full picture of the crowd but when the head of the march was at the lights at King St you couldn’t see the end of the march as it hadn’t got past Barrack St Post Office. The crowd were ordinary people from around the county, parents pushing children in buggies who were in all likelihood born at the hospital, elderly people who relied on the hospital for care, those of us whose only interaction was bringing a child to A&E and all points in between. The turnout was helped by the excellent weather but that’s not to say that the people of Wexford are fair weather friends of healthcare. We had to stop marching at the front so that the tail of the march could catch up.

The reality is that Brendan Howlin told the crowd that soon the draft report from the HSE for re-configuration will be available to local deputies. The services we need to protect are 24 hour A&E cover, maternity services, Intensive care and coronary care. What is fundamental is the need to maintain A&E round the clock. A&E is central to any hospital as most patients enter through it as opposed to elective admissions. Recently more consultants were relocated (or even re-configured?) from Wexford to Waterford. Many people have said to me that the hospital is on a slippery slope and that its future is under threat.


Minster Sean Connick’s admission at the rally that he wouldn’t vote against downgrading of the hospital in the Dáil genuinely shocked a lot of people there. He also effectively hung his FF colleague Senator Lisa McDonald, who at least had the guts to speak in support of the hospital despite being barracked by a section of the crowd, out to dry. When I left I could see a lot of people, mostly women one or two of them people I would know to be FF voters lining up to grill Minister Connick for his complacent attitude to the retention of the hospital.