120 people attended a public meeting on health organised by the Dublin West Labour Party in St. Brigid’s Community Centre, Blanchardstown on Thursday, March 5th. Speakers included Professor John Crown, Dr. Eamon Leen (Connolly Hospital), Joan Burton TD. The meeting was hosted by Cllr. Michael O’Donovan, Mayor of Fingal.

World-renowned cancer specialist Professor John Crown was as straight-talking as ever in diagnosing the healthcare failings of the FF-PD government: “Inequality is the defining characteristic of the Irish health-care system.” Prof. Crown denounced our two-tier system as “nothing less than apartheid” and paid tribute to the Labour party’s long-standing fight for a system of universal access.

He slammed the ongoing co-location debacle as “unbelievably bone-headed” in its inefficiency and waste. Prof. Crown feared that if implemented, Minister Harney’s collocation scheme would create a new “caste system”, where public patients were stigmatised and separated from private patients in each hospital.

In contrast, Prof. Crown gave his overwhelming backing to Labour’s proposal for universal health insurance, reassuring the audience that the five best-performing countries in the Eurozone had such a system.

In relation to the cervical cancer vaccine scandal, Prof. Crown drew applause from the gathered audience when he deemed it “the worst policy decision I have seen made by any government, anywhere.”

Dr. Eamon Leen brought the discussion back home, outlining the government’s consistent neglect of Connolly Hospital: “Connolly Memorial is the only major hospital in Dublin without an MRI scanner or a resident neurologist, and breast cancer services effectively stopped in 2007.” He called it “disgraceful” that a catchment area of 300, 000 people should be so underserved for so long. Dr. Leen highlighted what he called the “sheer stupidity” of spending €3 million every year to transfer patients from Connolly Hospital to Beaumont Hospital and the Beacon Clinic, for the want of an MRI scanner which would actually save tax-payer money within a short time.

Speaking after the highly successful event, Deputy Joan Burton said “it was abundantly clear from the huge crowd in attendance that people are crying out for affordable and accessible quality healthcare. People are not motivated by any sort of ideology but by the understandable desire for themselves and their families to be able to access the care they need when they need it without having to wonder how they are going to pay for it.”