BLAGAROON

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HARNEY’S HEALTH HORRORS

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HELPED BY HYPOCRITES

Only weeks after the Labour Party motion of No Confidence in Mary Blarney, Minister for Shambles in Health, exposed once again the hypocrisy and cynicism of the Fianna Failure, ratbag, Uncle Tom Cobbely ‘n all, Coalition Government, which after only ten months in office looks like the cast of the Beggar’s Opera, the scandals of the Harney supervised Health Services were further increased with the revelation that the previous minister, Michael Martin, had received a letter in 2002 informing him of the inadequacies of the Portlaoise Hospital breast scan services

This new and shocking revelation shows that it was absolutely right for the Labour Party to put down this motion, the second and unprecedented in this Dáil, to call Blarney and her hypocritical government to account for the shambles they have created in the public health services after ten years of gross mismanagement. Sailing under false colours of so-called reform all these years, Blarney and her immediate predecessors have undermined the quality of the public health service in a gung-ho attempt to privatise as much of it as possible by forcing people to invest in private health care schemes to seek to avoid the delays and bottlenecks induced by Blarney’s own deliberate neglect. The predictable outcome of the Dáil vote, the serried ranks of FF back-benchers, sell-out Green Party turncoats, self-serving “independents” marching into the ‘Yes’ lobbies in support of beleaguered Blarney doesn’t detract from the Opposition gain in exposing this hypocrisy to the public.

Asset stripping the public service has been a political aim of Blarney and her now discredited and rapidly dissolving right-wing faction, the misnamed “Progressive Democrats”. Reduced to herself and a closet Fianna Failure TD, Noel Grealish as Dáil reps, Piss-Pot Blarney is now fanatically determined to bulldoze through her dream project of Co-Located Hospitals, a euphemism for blatant favouritism and state subsidisation of private health practitioners on the grounds of publicly owned hospitals and clinics. Free land and free access to the clientele of public hospitals as well as a twenty-year bonanza of keeping their private practices intact, must be the most audacious swindle of the public purse since King Charles 1 debased the currency in 1642.

Blarney has spent most of the past years pushing this project which is why she lost the plot in regard to the everyday deficiencies of the health services and was badly caught out with the shocking revelation at the Oireachtas (Parliamentary) Committee on Health last November, (22 Samhain/November 2007), that 97 women had been mis-diagnosed at Portlaoise Hospital and told they were clear of breast cancer but, when the mistake was discovered, the women were not informed of the position and were left waiting while the bureaucrats sought to organise new appointments.

Yet, the smug and complacent Blarney continues to try and justify the scandalous situation which has developed in the Health Services under her leadership. She created the totally bureaucratic Health Service Executive; she diverted resources to the promotion of the “Co-located Hospitals” schemes which benefits only private practitioners and their clientele to the absolute detriment of the public patients; she and her predecessor, Michael Martin, ignored serious warnings of deficiencies in equipment and services at Portlaoise Hospital. It is now time for this incompetent
and delinquent minister to resign and if she doesn’t go on her own initiative a political campaign to force her out should become a priority.

This campaign will begin on this Saturday, 29th Márta/March, 2008, with a massive demonstration in Dublin organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, the Health Professionals Associations and an alliance of Health Action concern groups who represent the direct victims of Harney’s privatisation policies. If you want a fair and efficient Health Service now and for the future BE THERE! The March will assemble at Parnell Square at 2pm.

SHOW HARNEY & CO THAT WE WILL NOT ACCEPT A TWO-TIER HEALTH SERVICE WITH QUALITY SERVICES FOR THE RICH AND CRUMBS FOR THE REST OF US.

SAY NO TO PRIVATISATION OF THE HEALTH SERVICE!

HARNEY MUST GO!!

FearFeasa Mac Léinn
Áth Cliath/Dublin, 29 Márta /March 2008.

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