Demonstration at the condition of services at Kerry General Hospital

A local group of protestors is holding a Demonstration at the condition of services at Kerry General Hospital. Specifically, they are targeting the lack of a permanent Mammography and cancer service.

Assembly has been called for

11.30am SATURDAY 23 May 2009

March to Town, finishing Denny Street

 

People Before Profit will be there to offer to support. Feel free to join us!

"Kerry General Hospital (KGH) is being systematically run down by the HSE. The hospital is now facing a deeper crisis with Outpatients Clinics closing for six weeks a year, and Annagh Ward closing at weekends.

The slim hope that the recommendations in the Vision for Change report (January 2006) on the future of Mental Health policy in Ireland might be implemented were dealt a devastating blow when just in Kerry alone e1,000,000 was knocked off the budget.

In the A&E growing numbers of patients of all ages and all conditions are put on trolleys often for more than 24 hours due to the bed crisis at the hospital. There still is no Diabetic consultant or proper Renal treatment. The Cardiology unit is significantly under-resourced, while the Angiography service which provides X-rays of blood vessels was closed down three years ago. The removal of Cancer Care services means that ill patients have to make a round-trip to Cork to be treated. Only recently has a Breastcheck facility been announced, but there should be a permanent Mammography unit at KGH, not just a mobile unit.

Mary Harney has cut a further e1.1 billion off the health budget and this is responsible for the needless pain and suffering large numbers of people in Tralee have to put up with. These cuts are being done at the same time as the banks are being bailed out to the tune of billions of Euros!

The argument that People Before Profit put forward is simple. We need to fight back in the way the old age pensioners did, and won, over the Medical Card issue. It was their courageous resistance that inspired the more general protest movement which we see against the Fianna Fáil/Green government today. People Power can win. We can get rid of this ridiculous two-tier health system and replace it with a free universal health service paid for by taxing the rich and introducing a PAYE national health insurance scheme, eliminating private health insurance. Co-location, and privatising elements of the health service are not intelligent responses to the health crisis: we need world-class health care in Tralee and elsewhere to be provided by the State."

Seán Moraghan/People Before Profit Alliance Tralee