More Surreal Than Beckett

Waiting For The Irish Health Service

By Charley Brady

Without being aloof he gave off the air of a man who was content in his own company, so apart from the fact that it's not my style to intrude on somebody's private time, my chance to say 'hello' went by.

So I don't know him, but what I know OF him I've always liked. For no other reasons, I like him for two things: one is that he once commented on how, when the cinema curtain pulls back, he still feels the same excitement he felt as a boy. Even though it's hard now to find a cinema with an old- fashioned curtain I relate completely; and as a film buff I also relate to his admiration for director Ken Russell. Indeed, Byrne played Lord Byron in Russell's "Gothic", and can you imagine a better actor to play the brooding, almost Satanic poet- Lord?

He's had quite a chequered career, moving through terrific films like "The Usual Suspects" and my favourite, "Defence of the Realm" to honourable failures such as "Gothic" and "Hannah K"; even stuff that went right over my head like "Julia and Julia".

So I was pleased to see that American television has commissioned a second season of "In Treatment" which we haven't see yet but where he stars as psychotherapist Dr. Paul Weston. And "In Treatment" leads nicely into the passionate broadside he took at the Irish Health System during a visit to Dublin recently.

The actor had flown into Dublin for the launch of, and to address, a campaign for the Irish Hospice Foundation. He said: "We would refuse to check into a hotel that looks like most hospitals. Having healthcare, proper conditions for the ill and the dying, are something that we have an absolute right to and we should collectively demand that."

Mr. Byrne, who stayed with his mother, a retired nurse, throughout her final months went on: "It's not a privilege. It's a right. How we treat people who are sick and how we treat the elderly is a reflection of our society."

These comments came as we heard how two multimillion-euro units at a maternity hospital in Cork have never been used despite the fact that they should have opened last October.

Of course, that shouldn't surprise us as we struggle in the grip of a government that lied without a moments' conscience back in 2002 about how great the Health Service was going to be in a couple of years time.

Instead, five Irish hospitals are shouldering the brunt of the blame for 21,300 patients being left on waiting lists for more than three months. Little wonder that the Irish journalist Terry McGeehan has taken to referring to Health Minister Mary Harney as "Morticia".

Someone who sounds as equally frustrated as Mr. Byrne is Senator Fidelma Healy Eames who doesn't attempt hide her bafflement at to how the Health Service Executive (HSE) can continue to fail in vaccinating primary schoolchildren against tuberculosis.

Angrily jabbing at the table with her finger she says: "Tuberculosis is and has been on the rise and coming in the back door for several years, without proper attention being paid it."

Indeed, it seems that in many cases the usual bureaucrats are hampering any forward advancement.

The Senator, who is a graduate of Carysfort College, Blackrock and NUI, Galway, as well as Western Connecticut State University in the US must surely not be alone in denouncing the bungling of the present government. "How can it be that Dr. Noel Browne, fighting against so many odds in the 1950s managed the Herculean task of eradicating TB? Yet here is Mary Harney allowing it right back in again."

It is now fairly accepted that the ideal time to vaccinate against TB is at around five days. Yet with mother and child now routinely let out at two and three days, another difficulty arises. How can the importance of coming back in be stressed enough?

The Health Service grudgingly accepts that pen-pushing incompetence is at work, although of course they don't use those words.

They can't deny however that red tape in the form of issues over licensing at the laboratory where the vaccine is made brought immunisation to a grinding stand-still for an entire half-year over the 2007-08 period. And here comes more bureaucracy: it can't be acquired on a private basis as the HSE gets first shout at it.

Nor is there any point in trying your local surgery - your General Practitioner doesn't appear to carry any clout either.

I'm based in County Galway so I'll just highlight the running, unfunny joke that still awaits a punch-line at the Lisheenkyle National School.

Here we go. I won't tell you to catch it the first time around, as I'll probably have to repeat it before you believe me.

They have been waiting for the arrival of the vaccine for three years. Think about that. Three years.

No wonder Principal Anne Keary has joined Gabriel Byrne and Senator Healy Eames in the Land-of-Can-this-be-True?

When Lisheenkyle decided to order the magical elixir the lie was being given to the myth that lightning never strikes twice as President Bush was sworn in for another four years of fun and laughter; London's subway and bus routes had been hit by co-ordinated bombs that killed 52 and injured over 700 and the Saudis had voted for the first time (not the women, of course).

Yes, it seems a long time ago yet the largest organisation in the state, with a budget of €14.7 billion and 130,000 employees is running a little behind.

The Senator points out that it's not only Galway or Oughterard or Portlaioise, it's Dublin and indeed right across the country.

Leaving aside the question of TB - and as I wrote this it became obvious that it needs a far longer and in-depth article; indeed, the question of the screening of non-nationals entering the country has not even been touched on, nor the fact that 17-year-olds may be leaving school as risks only to seek a career as a doctor, dentist, nurse or what have you; leaving this aside it is more and more obvious that the Health Service under his government is at a terrible low point.

As I can tell you from recent personal experience the care one receives from the nurses and staff once admittance into the system is achieved is second to none.

Gabriel Byrne was at pains to highlight this during his visit and the Senator said as far back as February of last year (when Principal Anne Keary and her pupils had only been waiting for a year-and-a-half): "It is clear to me that nurses have been demeaned by this government. The health service is being further hit by this government's aggravation of nurses... They work six weeks longer than other health professionals each year for less pay. They supervise care workers who are earning 3,000 per annum more than they are. The care workers must report to them, and while the nurses bear the responsibility they are paid less in the process. In my view it is completely unreasonable that the Minister for Health hasn't entered negotiations to ensure equity and parity for nurses."

An actor - especially a passionate and articulate one like Gabriel Byrne - can often get across points that would otherwise be missed by a lot of people. Likewise passionate public representatives like Senator Healy Eames, who sees something wrong and won't stop worrying at it. Also in her favour: one of her favourite films is "The Shawshank Redemption".

Ah, a woman of taste.