Health

The HSE has cut the funding of Connolly Hospital from €104 million in 2009 to €84 million in 2011 – a massive 20% in two years when the number of patients treated has increased by 10%. This must become a major issue in the Dublin West by election and the two Ministers in the area, Burton and Varadkar, put under pressure.

The HSE's confirmation that Roscommon County Hospital’s emergency department will no longer operate on a 24-hour basis has led to strong local protests.

On the Saturday before the election, Enda Kenny said he couldn’t guarantee that more wards wouldn’t be closed and the next day it became clear why, as Fine Gael announced plans to cut €1.1 billion from the health budget over the next four years.

Conor Mac Liam is standing in the upcoming General Election for the Socialist Party and the United Left Alliance in the Carlow/Kilkenny constituency. He is known as a defender of public health services and a campaigner for the building of a hospice for Carlow/Kilkenny. He came to prominence with the death three years ago of his wife Susie Long, a public patient, whose diagnosis of bowel cancer was delayed for seven months whilst private patients were getting life-saving diagnoses within days.

Conor Mac Liam, Áine Nic Liam and Fergus Mac Liam – on the resignation of Mary Harney as Minister for Health earlier today.

As HSE West faces a deficit of €90 million by the end of the year, there has been a range of proposals to cut costs put forward in recent weeks. A report from UK consultants, Mott MacDonald, suggest up to 1,000 temporary jobs could be cut and even a whole hospital could be closed as part of a plan to save between €44 and €54 million.

The cutbacks to disability services, accessed by over 25,000 people across the country, represents a new low in the government’s slash and burn policies. Not content with laying waste to the economy to facilitate bailing out the banks, the government is now sticking the boot into the most vulnerable section of society.

Thousands of Wexford people took to the streets of Wexford Town last Saturday to protest at the cutting of services at Wexford General Hospital.

The protest march is part of an on going campaign by health workers, local groups and patients who are angry at attempts to downgrade services at Wexford General Hospital or at some stage to reduce the number of hours the accident and emergency unit is open there - it is currently a 24 hour service.

The crisis in our health service is continuing, and in fact is being made worse by the vicious cutbacks being imposed by this government. In this special feature Socialist Party reporters from around the country give a glimpse not just of the crisis, cutbacks and closures, but also of the fightback.

New "trolley watch” figures released by the Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation (INMO) show that on 20 January, over 500 patients had the "luxury" of occupying a hospital trolley, breaking the previous record of 495 reached in 2006.