Varadkar and government guilty on hospital trolley scandal

Lorraine Hennessy, Workers’ Party representative for Dublin Mid-West has slammed Minister for Health, Mr. Leo Varadkar, as being hypocritical in his penalising of hospitals for patients on trolleys. The number of patients on trolleys is a national disgrace and robs people of a basic entitlement – the right to human dignity. If our health service is failing then it is the person at the top that must shoulder the responsibility and that is the Minister. The government has forced cutbacks and reduced staff and then criticises the logical result.  This is dishonest and total hypocrisy and is a feeble attempt to mislead people. The choice left to hospitals if they are to avoid fines is to cut back on elective surgery but then, typically of this government, the Taoiseach in an attempt to con people criticises waiting lists for surgery.

 

“The funding of the health service must be urgently addressed,” Lorraine Hennessy insists, “and our health service adequately funded to meet the needs of the population. If anyone should be penalised it is those wealthy sectors who are not paying their fair share of taxation. For example, large tracts of land in Dublin worth many million is totally without a tax levy. Also, even a tiny increase in Corporation Tax, if ring fenced, would go a long way to ease the crisis in our hospitals.”

Lorraine Hennessy concludes, ‘As for the Minister he should face the ultimate penalty for his failure in the next election and that is rejection by the electors.”