It is amazing what you learn when your hip gives up and you cannot tie your laces any more. Apart from rediscovering the angelic qualities of spouse and family, it teaches a lot about politics.
You learn the number and variety of people who are hobbling around the place hoping and sometimes praying for a new joint that will release them from pain and reinvigorate their gait and their lives. You learn that Brexit has not only disjointed the flow of goods, medicines, and food between these islands, but the number of hip and knee sufferers has grown exponentially, as they say in the best political circles.
For a long number of years our medics were telling these patients to use the European Union as their escape route. Fly off to Lithuania or Latvia, or take the bus to Dublin or Galway, pay for the operation and the EU will reimburse most of the bill. Brexit saw a dramatic end to all that. And not a word nor a burned bus from a Brexiteer.
But then in steps Robin Swann with a special north/south fund to replace what the EU used pay. No more flying to Lithuania, of course, but you can still take the bus to Dublin or Galway. But only to a private establishment where insurance prices outpace anything we are used to paying up here. You will probably discover that Robin’s scheme is nowhere as generous as the EU one and you will need a wee euro account to top up what Robin’s scheme is prepared to pay for your new hip. An all-Ireland solution but unlikely to create a stampede of hobblers across the border.
I recently took the bus to Dublin. The consultant who replaced my banjaxed hip with a brand-new titanium one informed me that he had been up in Belfast recently, in Musgrave Park Hospital. He spent a time extolling the excellence of that facility only to then tell me that there have been no operations happening there for months. The bulk of the staff were scattered to attend to Covid and now they can’t get them back, so there are no operations, and the exponential thing keeps on rising.
You can also learn a lot in a hospital bed and hanging around waiting rooms. You learn that there is no border for many medical consultants. Lots of them are border hopping as well as system hopping. Public sector some days, private sector other days. Belfast one day, Dublin or Galway the next. You learn that the main difference between private and public is not the doctor who does the operation but the speed of access, the quality of the food and the cheque you must sign before you are allowed in the door. You also learn that it is very hard to be critical of the one who is going to relieve you of your pain.
But the biggest thing a crumbling hip teaches is that Ireland is far too small for two health services, both of which are not in the best of health. It is beginning to look like the consultants will follow the money and the people will follow the consultants. That is not a good omen for a public health service, free at the point of delivery. There is already a huge private health service in the south and it is growing exponentially in the north. Grand for those of us who have private insurance or a wee euro account somewhere. Very painful for those who will just have to endure for another one or ten years.
Two tiers would normally be better than one. But not when it comes to the health system. The political parties know all this, of course, and they have claimed that they will do all within their power to prevent it happening. But I wouldn’t put too much money on that promise.
