Images from Dublin March For a Decent Health Service-
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rights, freedoms and repression |
news report 
Saturday March 29, 2008 22:04
by Paula Geraghty
mspgeraghty at yahoo dot ie
Organised by Dublin Council of Trade Unions, Congres Youth and Patients together
Tens of thousands turned out in Dublin City centre today to demand a decent public health service.
Images (c)
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0329/health.html
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images (c)
Yep.
more
photo's
From my interesting vantage point the entire of o'connell st was filled to parnell sq and on.
End the 2 tier health system
Save Our Public Services! Vote No to Lisbon!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf969_2EKLI
Copyright Michael Gallagher.
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I was there with my comrades from the Dublin branches of the Workers' Solidarity movement, so the vantage from which I took my photos will necessarily be biased. However, there was a good turn-out from (nearly) all organisations which claim a socialist outlook and agenda. Unfortunately the turnout, while not minuscule, should be at least ten times larger given the scale and urgency of the issue. Now, this isn't meant as a criticism of the efforts that went into organising and publicising the march but rather as an indication of how powerless ordinary people feel in the face of the aggressive promotion of the privatisation/two-tier agenda that even the churches won't challenge. I wonder did anyone listen closely to Dublin archbishop Diarmuid Martin on RTE radio this afternoon - while not openly defending private medicine, he accepted its continuing existence within the Irish health system. The HSE spokesperson that followed him distracted with the now-customary 'blame the patients, blame the workers' spin about bed-blockers, 'out-dated' practices, etc. Among all the privileged sectors of Irish society there is a self-interested consensus around the future of the health system; such differences that arise between these parties are differences of opinion, not of outlook. Some may argue for a 'kinder, gentler' two-tier system, but I for one will not buy into this either as a goal or a tactic. There is either equity in the health service or there is not. All forms of private healthcare provision are an affront to social equity.
There are a lot of links that can be made to other struggles for democracy and social justice in Ireland - for instance the presence yesterday of the Mayo Shell to Sea campaigners is a reminder that current and previous governments serve the interests of their corporate backers first and solely. This is as true in the wards of our hospitals as it is off our shores and in NW Mayo. I hope this could be the beginning of a fightback that can snatch back our future as a society from the ravenous jaws of the double-headed beast of the government/business lobby. And it won't be before time either!
More from me.
Some more from me.
My final selection of photos. I didn't get all of the speakers, but here's the few I caught.
Here ae some pictures of our campaign during yesterdays March.
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Fair play to all groups , organisations, And to all the trade councils hard work In preparing for over a month to have the march run smoothly and peacefully.
Save Our Lady's Hospital Campaign
Save Our Lady's Hospital Campaign
Louanne, has medical bills for her condition of crohn's disease. She can't afford health insurance and the wealthiest country in the world's solution- a lottery.
Check the BBC link for the fuller picture:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7321500.stm
Privatisation of medical services only benefits the rich and wealthy who can afford the most specialised treatments.
Private hospitals, drug companies etc will only provide for customer demand in the most lucrative section of the market.
A doctor can make more money doing boob jobs than correcting a curved spine.
Government health services provide a standardised service for all - but due to political interference (better levels of care provided in a minister's constituency to hoover up votes) and insane levels of bureaucracy (consultants with their face in the pig trough gobbling up vital funds while patients linger on trolleys) and enormous managerial incompetance (wards and beds without nurses or doctors to operate them).
In either system the level of service will always be abysmal.
As a rule if you are able to afford it you will get good health care.
If you can't afford it you will get poor health care.
No amount of tinkering with the system will change that.
The poor always get the crap deal.
They seem to have reasonably good health services in some places though.
Scandanavian countries and France spring to mind. I
'm no expert but I don't think it should be beyond us at this stage in human development to provide a reasonable health service for everyone in return for their taxes.
That's the whole problem.
Governments spend hard earned taxpayers money like drunken sailors in return for inefficiency and incompetance.
What do they always see as the solution? Throw more money at it that's what!
The Health Service is a money pit.
I'm not against public services of course - obviously police, courts, prisons, hospitals, schools, roads etc. can only be provided by an organised state.
But don't expect efficiency and value for tax payers money.
Private companies are not more efficient either.
http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2007/06/01/ppps-they-j...work/
""One section of the Dublin to Galway motorway was built by the state. Another section of it was built under Public Private Partnership. Cost of the state built section worked out at 8.1 million Euros per kilometre. Cost of the PPP built section worked out at 14.1 millioon Euros per kilometre. The PPP section, by the way, will have a toll on it for almost three decades, up to 2035 so the taxpayer gets to pay again, and again, and again.""
""The building of schools under PPP in the South was estimated by the Department to cost 6% less than under normal procurement. The C&AG’s report in 2004, found they will cost between 8% and 15% MORE than under normal procurement.""
The alternative should not be confined between the limits of either a privately controlled health service or a government controlled service, but of a people controlled service with democratic structures throughout.
Michael McDowells wife is on the board of the HSE along with two bankers and probably other capitalistic idiots on there too, driving the public health service into the ground. They should be effed off and restructuring of the governing board of the HSE be made, with people who dont think in Euro's in their place.
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