Opinion

Tom Kelly: Spell in hospital showed just how dedicated our health service staff are

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly is an Irish News columnist with a background in politics and public relations. He is also a former member of the Policing Board.

It is a nonsense to maintain health is a devolved matter when there is no one at the helm of devolution and there hasn’t been for nearly three years
It is a nonsense to maintain health is a devolved matter when there is no one at the helm of devolution and there hasn’t been for nearly three years It is a nonsense to maintain health is a devolved matter when there is no one at the helm of devolution and there hasn’t been for nearly three years

Last month I had the misfortune to take ill but I had the good fortune to find myself in the care of the staff of Daisy Hill Hospital.

The situation at the emergency department was chaotic and overcrowded and it was only a Monday at 6pm. One nurse remarked it’s like a weekend every night. Even to an untrained eye there were clearly people presenting themselves to casualty with issues more suited to treatment at a poly clinic or a GP’s practice.

But across Northern Ireland people are finding it difficult to access their GP. Some report a three week waiting time. The system is under-performing because of chronic underfunding, under resourcing and over management. There are simply too many tiers of management within our health service. The plans to centralise key health services makes sense but simply does not work because in a largely rural community, Northern Ireland does not have an adequate roads or transport infrastructure. But that’s an argument for another day.

Security is now a major concern at hospitals. It is a sorry sign of the times that nursing staff have to be protected from those they seek to treat. Harsh as it sounds medical staff should not have to put up with abusive patients who are drunk or on drugs.

During my hospitalisation I was beside the A&E workstation. It was non-stop bedlam. Imagine the BBC’s drama Casualty on fast forward. Doctors/nurses grabbed snacks, energy drinks and coffees whilst remaining at computers or phones. Many of those took no more than a ten/fifteen minute break on a thirteen hour shift.

I witnessed this dedicated workforce exhaust themselves, watching in disbelief, admiration and shock.

Clearly, the administration and paper work for medical staff is burdening. Endless form filling. Perhaps that’s the only protection for them from an increasingly litigious public.

This writer was particularly struck by the amount of time doctors spent chasing beds for patients. It was as if the hospital was a 24hr convenience store which had run out of stock but not customers.

This is the real front line of the health service. It’s crippled but limps on doing extraordinary work with ever more limited resources.

The health service is the most human side of public services and yet it has been decimated by poor management, aimless consultancy reports and absolutely zero political accountability.

And it is that lack of political accountability which is the greatest indictment of all.

People continue to say here that they want ‘normal’ politics but ‘normal’ politics means holding politicians to account. We don’t. It would appear they could literally burn money and get away with it.

Northern Ireland voters are so traumatised by tribalism and so soaked up in sectarianism that they traipse like lemmings into polarised political standpoints at election time.

Those people working in the health service deserve more consideration than that. Like teaching, healthcare in all its forms is a vocation. I watched the breathtaking hypocrisy of some politicians from the two big parties showing up at picket lines to ‘stand with the nurses’. More brass neck than three brass monkeys.

Secretary of State Julian Smith is supposed to be running Northern Ireland but he was more elusive than a DUP MLA on the Nolan Show.

It is a nonsense to maintain health is a devolved matter when there is no one at the helm of devolution and there hasn’t been for nearly three years. If the British government’s position is to let chaos reign throughout public services in order to embarrass MLAs back into Stormont, it will have the opposite effect as the enormity of the challenge will swamp them.

Incompetency was at the heart of the last Executive but with Westminster taking centre stage on our internal affairs such incompetency could soon be replaced with Whitehall indifference.