The Politics of Men.................12 months on

This was originally posted almost 12 months ago, with the Lisbon referendum high on the agenda. With another round of elections approaching us now in 2009, this one a mis-match of European, local and bye-elections, the post seems as relevant if not more so. Although a lot has changed since then and unfortunately theres a lot more that hasnt. One fact cannot be denied, Sligos Cancer services still exist and grow and outperform every single cancer clinic in the country.
When written last year, this was in response to the growing intensity of the campaign, the unrelenting apathy and indifference of Fianna Fail and Mary Harney and the steely determination coming from the most unlikely of surces.

Mary 'I see dead people' Coughlan

A year ago before becoming Tánaiste, Mary Coughlan promises campaigners she supports the retention of cancer services in Sligo and will do all she can to help her hospital. After 6 months of ignored letters, emails and phonecalls, 4 members of the campaign (myself included) travel to Donegal town to the now Tánaistes constituency office. The idea was that a hand delivered request for a meeting couldnt possibly be ignored, we're in a democracy after all and these people work for us, dont they?

The reception was not exactly welcoming, with Coughlans staff of three refusing to give their names and then threatening to call police! We were less then politely ushered off the property and it would be over 5 months later before we finally came face to face with the Sarah Palin of Donegal.
For some inexlicable reason the management of Sligo General decided that Coughlan was the right person to invite to open a new unit in a hospital where the same woman was now supporting the closure of the cancer unit. The fact that Coughlan had completely turned her back on the people of the region, did a complete u-turn on her supposed support for Sligo seemed lost on them, even if everyone else noticed the glaring hypocrisy.
After postponing the event in February, the Tániste (who now apparently had the countries finances in control)visited Sligo General. And on March 6th, the management pulled out all the stops to welcome their vaunted guest. The press arrived and so did the protestors.
Arriving early, the second in command was met by some of the campaigners from north Sligo and Donegal. In her own inimitable way, she told them to forget about the cancer services 'they were gone, agreement had been reached with the GP's', this despite the fact that on not one single occasion has she spoken to the GP association regarding Sligos cancer services. She then went on to explain the reasoning behind the closure 'if Tim snuffed it, what would happen?'-- her words. The Tim she was referring to is the cancer control director for the Northwest and a consultant surgeon, one of a pair of surgeons in Sligos Oncology centre. Finally when the campaigners, angry at her idiotic and insensitive comments advised they would never vote for her again, she replied 'I couldnt care less who you vote for'-- again her words not mine.
Shortly after 5pm, we decided to go into the hospital, sick of standing outside hospitals from Galway to Dublin and back, tired of standing in every kind of weather and tired of being routinely ignored in the process, we entered our hospital determined to carry our message to the Tánaiste.

At first all seemed normal, the guards and security saw no threat and we entered unmolested. It wasn't long however, before the mood changed. The first signal came from the management themselves, who apparently were unhappy with our presence, afraid of trouble or a ruined photo opportunity. 'As long as we were left alone, there would be no disturbance' we promised but within moments the mood had changed and 18 months of frustration and anger soon started to reveal itself. As we positioned ourselves around the dias awaiting the Tánaiste, a member of her staff decided to pull a banner out of a campaigners hands, managing to push her against the wall while at the same time informing us 'that we had no right to be there as this was private grounds, it was, as they say, all downhill from there.

From the start of her speech, the air crackled with shouts of 'Liar' and 'hypocrite', the usual rehearsed drivel we've become so used to was only broken by questions about the future of cancer patients and reasons why the Tánaiste sold us all out. None were answered of course but none could be ignored either.
The cathaoirleach of Sligo, FF coucillor Jude Devins followed the Tánaiste on to the podium, obviously taking his cue from his party colleague he managed to enrage the crowd even further. His talk on 'customers' and 'customer service' drew an immiediate reaction from the crowd who still consider themselves 'patients' in need of 'health care. As he is want to do, jude looked bemused and more than a little lost but continued on with his speech to barely disguised disgust.
Fiasco, sham, publicity stunt, photo opportunity, take your pick, all were used to describe the shameful PR exercise witnessed that Friday. With the air reeking of the Tánaiste's hypocrisy, we left much as we had arrived, with a bitter taste in our mouths and the campaign on our minds. Prof Keane's due the following wednesday, so theres no time to rest or as an Tánaiste is prone to do whenever faced with a challenge, have a 'period of reflection'.
Unbeknownst to us, Coughlan had done an interview for local radio on that same Friday and had spoken freely about the economy and Irelands disappearing finances. As we listened on Monday morning to her interview, her lack of insight and understanding of all things fiscal was suddenly eclipsed by her next statement. With an unusually soft voice, Coughlan told us how people have gone to their eternal reward, wishing they had better treatment and less invasive surgery then was available at Sligo General, how there were experts but not expertise at the hospital. I had to have the interview replayed to me over the phone that night to be sure this is what I indeed heard and I was surprised to discover, that this was in fact, what she had said. Not content to talk complete nonsense about the economy, now shes communicating with the dead and has even polled them on their opinions of Sligo. General. Here was evidence of the Tánaistes renowned competitive streak, no matter how low the bar is set, she will strive to lower it even further and she manage to do just that.
To the Sarah Palin of South Donegal, we salute you, amongst a generation of bottom feeding politicans, politics has hit an all time low.
I wonder if she can see Sligo General from her house?

2008, a year to forget

12-13 specialist breast cancer centres were recommended by the Prof O’Higgins report in 2000. His plans included one in Sligo to provide these vital services to the people of the Northwest. Breastcheck had been successfully rolled out in parts of Dublin and a country wide rollout was imminent, it seemed as if the Irish government had finally realised the serious threat that cancer posed to the lives of people in Ireland and had finally decided to act.
Fast forward to February 2007, Fianna Fail TD and Jr. Minister for health, Dr. Jimmy Devins and the then Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern are pictured with a petition of some 13,000 signatures in an effort to bring much needed radiotherapy to Sligo and the people of the region. Within 6 months though, the Minister for Health, Mary Harney backed by the government announced that the services in Sligo General Hospital were to be closed, that there would be only 8 centres of excellence and patients from the Northwest would have to travel to Galway, Dublin or even further afield for life saving treatment. To add insult to injury, Breastcheck had still not being rolled out to the Northwest. Of course this all became clear after the general elections of 2007 and the northwest of the country was left facing an even more uncertain future then before.
Following protests in Sligo and Dublin late in 2007, a small group of cancer patients and survivors started a ‘campaign to retain’. Td’s, senators and counsellors from all parties attended campaign meetings, stood shoulder to shoulder with protestors and publicly stated their support for Sligo General hospital and the excellent services provided there by Mr. Tim O’Hanrahan and his team of consultants and specialists. Early 2008 saw more protests including a moving candlelit vigil outside Sligo General on a freezing cold Good Friday, attended by thousands. The campaign’s momentum continued to grow throughout the spring of ’08, culminating in one of the biggest concerts Sligo ever saw on April 26th. Again our TD’s and senators stood amongst the protestors, vying for their place in the photos and media coverage that followed, within a month however, their true loyalties were revealed when Fianna Fail TD’s from across the Northwest voted against a motion to save Sligo’s cancer services. Weeks later their colleagues in the senate followed suit and the worst fears of campaigners were realised, party loyalty and careers took precedence over the people they had promised to represent.
The summer of 2008 saw a new Taoiseach, a Tánaiste from Donegal and hopes of change. In early June, more promises were made, this time a new luxury coach for those patients still forced to travel daily to UCHG. Yet despite initial hopes, it quickly became clear that nothing had changed at least not for the good. By the time September had arrived, campaigners had travelled to UCHG, Fianna Fail’s conference in Ballybrit and to the top of legendary Knocknarae. A petition had been lodged with Europe and campaigners had spent weeks travelling to the towns and villages across the northwest, handing out thousands of leaflets.




In September, the group met with the Minister for Health and Prof Tom Keane. They met a woman so detached from the reality of the Irish health system, there seemed little point talking to her. Here was a minister who refused to acknowledge the extent of the problems she helped create and a professor drafted in from Canada who refused to even meet with consultants on the ground in the Northwest or even visit the centres they had built up through hard work and dedication to their patients.Whatever the answers they were seeking they wouldn’t find them in Mary Harney’s offices, that much was very clear.

To coincide with Breast awareness month in October, MEPs Marion Harkin and Jim Higgins brought a delegation from the campaign over to Brussels. There we met Robert Madeline, the DG of Health in Europe, the contrast between this meeting and that with the Irish minister for Health was stark. Here was a civil servant who actually cared about people, their health and their rights, we spoke at length with him and the MEPS and returned home with renewed hope but also to an early budget.
You don’t need us to tell you the disaster the budget was, Budget 2009 attacked the young, the old and the sick and October and November saw protests countrywide. Harney appeared ever determined that ‘her’ cancer strategy would go ahead even though Drogheda’s move to Dublin was deferred, Waterford’s beds were slashed to 19 and Galway continued to struggle with the increased workload that followed the closure of Castlebars centre. The Irish people had to sit back and watch as the HPV vaccine was cancelled because the treatment that could save the lives of young women was deemed ‘poor value’ by Harney and the HSE. Sligo’s campaign continued unabated, hardy protestors joined the ‘Patients Together’ group in Dublin and marched once again to Kildare street. On the 1st of December they picketed the Minister for Health as she treated a group of international experts to a few days in the ‘Four Season’s’ in Dublin. The theme of the conference was ‘restoring the public’s faith’ in our cancer services, the irony was lost on nobody.
At the end of 2008, we still have a minister for health who received less first preference votes than there were mammograms in Sligo General last year. A minister for health with no party and no mandate and yet there she sits alongside the Taoiseach and our own Tánaiste. The Northwest is still at risk of losing its cancer services, Breastcheck has not yet arrived and Senator Feeney’s luxury coach? ..The less said about that the better.

But the news isn’t all bad however, the EU accepted the campaign’s petition and it has now passed to the commission. The campaign has grown to include groups in 5 counties and the consultants and GPs of Sligo and SGH have set up their own committee and publicly stated their opposition to the ill thought out strategy. On top of that, councillors of all parties from all over the Northwest, signed a letter stating their support of the campaign.
Now in 2009 and with the local and European elections looming, the government will have to sit up and take notice and it’s up to all of us to make sure they do just that. Just as the consultants of SGH realised that this is more than just the loss of our cancer services we too have realised that this is more than just a campaign about cancer services. This campaign is about our rights and your rights, rights as Irish and European citizens, rights as patients, the rights of your children and family to free and equitable health care as promised by our constitution and your rights as a human being.
At a meeting in March a woman asked why her life was worth less than that of a woman in Dublin or Cork or Galway? Before she died, the same woman asked that the campaign never stop, that no-one, man or woman, of any colour, age or creed should suffer as she did, that she would not accept that her life was worth less, simply because of where she lived.
We agree and for that one reason alone, we will not stop, we will not be treated like second class citizens and we are not asking for our rights anymore, we are demanding them.

Poster from the 'PatientsTogether' March

Minister for Private health?

Knocknarea

August 17th 2008




150 people climb legendary
Knocknarea mountain in Sligo. As tradition dictates each participant brings a stone to the ancient cairn of Queen Maeve, the warrior queen of Connaught.
The youngest had just turned 3, the oldest was in her 80's accompanied by her life long friend, herself only a year younger. Cancer patients struggled up the wet rocks, families carried stones in rememberance of their loved ones lost and even some local politicans made the trek to the top.
After a week of storms, floods across the country and a months rain in a single dark August day, even the weather was kind that morning as people from all across the northwest stood together at the top of Queen Maeves tomb.
As one walker said, 'with Queen Maeve and God on our side who the hell can be on theirs'

No money, no co-location

Beacon Medical Group’s co-located hospital at the Mid-West Regional in Limerick is the first in the country to get a final grant of planning permission, after two appeals to An Bord Pleanála – one involving Socialist Party leader Joe Higgins – were both deemed invalid.
However, after months of high-stakes talks, the whole future of Health Minister Harney’s co-location strategy now hangs on events due to unfold over the coming week.
“There are three hospitals that we want to get signed up now,” a HSE spokesperson said. The HSE says it is ‘very, very confident’ that project agreements (PA) for co-located hospitals at St James’s in Dublin and at the Waterford Regional Hospital will be signed very shortly.
The HSE has asked for updates and clarifications from all the consortia but has insisted that the documentation must be finalised by the end of July. The Synchrony consortium has now agreed a date – before the end of August – when it will sign a Project Agreement for St James’s. Synchrony will also post the required €20 million bond with the HSE.
A PA for Sligo, where Mount Carmel Medical Group (MCMG) is the preferred bidder, will certainly take a month longer than at MCMG’s other co-location in Waterford and at St James’s. Beacon would be offered the contract to build these two hospitals, should deals not be signed. Sligo is described as a ‘disaster of a site’, built on top of a hill. The technicalities of joining the proposed and the older parts of the hospital are difficult. The Waterford Co-location Consortium is to build the hospital in that city and MCMG will be the operator there.

Read the full article here in the Irish Medical Times

And the Seanad too

We weren't expecting anything different, hoping maybe but certainly not expecting any better. The lack of faith, illustrated best by the small turnout of campaigners said it all. These people had been lied to before and why travel all the way to Dublin to be lied to again.
The senators debated, the senators voted and the motion was defeated.
Read the full debate here...

'Talk is cheap' one of these senators said to me back in April as we briefly spoke after a public meeting in Ballina. I had just listened to him tell the packed conference room about his concern for Sligo's cancer services. 'Family first, the Northwest second and Fianna Fail third' was how he passionatley described his priorities. I didnt believe it then but why not give the young senator the benefit of the doubt?
I did and he was right, talk is cheap.
All we've heard is talk, not alone do these senators contradict each other, they manage to contradict themselves. We're not supposed to notice but we do, we're not supposed to challenge them but we do, yet it makes no difference. So what is the point?

What does it take to get your government to notice?
We've had the protests, the motions and even a concert. We produced the medical evidence, they ignored it, we tried to reason with them they refused to speak to us.
So what will it take? I think we know the answer but are we willing?

When is a political issue not a political issue?

When you have a minister for health that ignores medical evidence, quotes out of date and inaccurate statistics and refuses to acknowledge a differing opinion, are you faced with a medical issue or a political one? When our TD's and senators are unable or even unwilling to help, where can you turn?
They all talk about best medical practice and best patient outcomes, yet choose to ignore evidence that meets and even surpasses these standards. If this was truly a medical issue, then surely there would be no issue. The answer would be simple, the evidence enough and the decision already made. But this is not the case, this is not how things work anymore in the new Ireland, complaints don't go up, they go around. Theres no-one to take responsibility because nobody wants it, its better not to know, its easier.

So how exactly did we get to this point? Our politicans hide behind misplaced party loyalties, more concerned with the anger of their party then the health of their constituents. With a blatant disregard for the constitution, Mary Harney delegates to anyone willing to accept the responsibility (or at least until they can in turn delegate to someone else). These elected representatives scream that Sligo's cancer services is not a political issue, yet when the medical evidence is presented, its duly ignored.
Where does it end? at what point will people say enough? at what point will it be too late?
Its a dangerous experiment we're involved in, people will get hurt and careers damaged if not destroyed but if thats what it takes for people to listen, for people to care, then maybe its a very neccesary experiment.

The Politics of Men.................

You could tell she was slightly awestruck by his presence but not intimidated, she spoke up, said what was on her mind, declined his leaflet and continued on with her shopping. I heard her say the names 'Scanlon, Devins' and the word 'disgrace' and the source of her anger became immiediatley obvious. The sight of Sligo's favourite son immaculate in navy blazer and cream trousers handing out 'Yes to Lisbon' flyers didnt surprise her as much it did me. Here was a man used to warm welcomes, hearty handshakes and generous compliments, a former minister for finance and EU commisioner, a man not prepared for the quiet anger of a middle aged woman in the centre of his town.
I know that this man has lost someone dear to him but I wondered who it was she had lost.

Within seconds her place was taken by an elderly couple, again leaflets were offered, this time one was accepted. The husband enjoyed his chance to shake hands with this elder statesman, the wife refused to acknowledge him and as impatience got the better of her, she quickly walked off, leaving behind her husband and his awkward attempts at small talk.
We spoke with this statesman, he berated us for implying that this was a political issue, how the recent Dail motion did more damage then good and that a lifetime in politics told him as much.
I asked if this was so true, why he hadn't spoken out before? why wait until a week after the motion? The answers were short and impatient, 'the government has to vote against the opposition', 'Castlebar and Letterkenny should never have been included'. I asked why loyalty to a party was more important then loyalty to the people who elected them? his face flushed and he turned his back on us.

'People are going to die Ray' and he turned to face us again but this time his attentions focused on the woman to my right. Although not given to raising her voice and small in stature, she has a commanding presence. Her soft voice hides a quiet determination and dignity that only suffering brings and thus makes it all the more impossible to ignore. It dawned on me then, that it would be women that would solve this problem, I didnt have time to wonder why this was but whatever the reason, Im certain it's so.
We left with his angry promise 'I will bring them to Drumm and Keane myself' referring to the medical reports the HSE has chosen to ignore, the ones that the government wishes didnt exist, the ones that expose the lies and also the liars.

No more than two hundred yards away we ran into a Fianna Fail TD and senator, the TD ignored us, the senator looked on anxiously, we let them know we wished to speak and waited. To pass the time we joked about what we would say and how we would say it, I looked for familiar faces in the crowds but saw none. As the senator finally approached us, she nervously appraised us. We had tried and failed to meet with her on a number of occasions and I sensed this was partly the reason she seemed apprehensive. We discussed the closing of Sligo's cancer services, the conditions the men and women have to endure every day on their journey to and from Galway. We discussed how the region will be left without any diagnostics as Breastcheck has no schedule for the Northwest, we discussed how Mary Harney and the HSE were allowed to use figures and statistics that we all know to be out of date and incorrect but yet go unchallenged, we discussed.

Its a conversation we've all had many times now but its one that we've grown weary of, we all agree whats happening is wrong, yet can agree on nothing else. Still I was glad to have met this senator, having only previously spoken to her over the phone, I knew little of her and was less than impressed by how little she knew on that occasion. In person there was a different side to her, I think she felt genuinely ashamed by what was happening and wanted to be of help. Yet despite this, her party allegiance reared its head when I blamed their policies, I'm still surprised by this misplaced loyalty and its blindness, have they lost the ability to doubt or to think for themselves?
The myopia of these people, these 'leaders' and their stubborn reluctance to question what they know to be untrue is staggering, I dont know how to describe it because I cant understand it. I dont doubt she wanted to help, I only doubt if she could.

Later I thought of another woman, it was the agreed meeting with her this very morning that had first brought us into Sligo centre. In her office she described how she would try to help us, she was careful not to give us false hope but she did however, give us hope. It wasnt hard to imagine her in her former career, teaching honours maths to nervous students. As she detailed the positives and negatives of our proposal, an analytical and intelligent mind revealed itself. I pictured her in Europe, an Independent, an Irish woman and MEP, free from the party ties that seem to strangle our local representatives. I tried to imagine how hard she must have had to work to get that far, it made it very easy to admire her.
She didnt need to make any promises to us, we instinctively knew she would do as she said and left her to it.

Its the promise that was made later on that saturday afternoon that worries me. Those reports have already been presented, those reports have already been ignored.
Did this man mean what he said? was it another false promise to get rid of an increasing annoyance? Was this another lie designed to cloud the real issue at hand? Theres no way to be sure and thats what concerns me.
One certainty though, is that we will keep you to that promise Ray. But if you break that promise, its not the men of the Northwest you need to be wary of.