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Harney must go, it's as simple as that.
Cowan clearly has decided that it's better to leave a PD minister in health to take the flak and act as a mudgaurd for FF from political fallout.
But Cowan is RESPONSIBLE for re-appointing Mary Harney as Minister for Health and he must take the principle responsibity. He could have removed her when he took over as Taoiseach, he chose not to, which was a monumental error on his part, the second monumental error of his in recent months, the first, backing Bertie to the hilt and demonstrates once again both his very poor judgement on these matters and secondly the fact that when something is wrong such as Harney as Minister for Health or Bertie's accounts of his financial dealings, Cowan persists in an erroneous line of thought and like Margaret Thatcher is not for turning. This however is not a personal strength but a personal weakness. A bad Health Service is something which is in fact a matter of life and death yet Cowan thinks if he does a U-Turn on the Health Service he will suffer politically which even if he does, it's better to save people's lives than to lose political face or capital.
The concept of Centre's of Excellence is now shown to be bogus. Forcing people away from their local hospital into overcrowded hospitals such as Galway is not the answer and never will be and forget what people tell you about centres of excellence, Galway hospital can only cope with so much. Grand if you built a new hospital somewhere that dealt only with cancer, was on a greenfield site out in the country and hence had plenty room for parking and expansion. But Galway hospital has reached the limit of its expansion.
A new approach has to be taken. We don't need more roads in this country. We need first and foremost an upgraded health service where new equipment is bought for the regioanal hospitals.
Galway hospital for example is only slightly bigger than the other regional hospitals. But now it's meant to take patients from the other hospitals when already there were people lying on hospital trolleys waiting to be seen. This is total madness by Harney and she clearly hasn't a clue what she is doing. Instead of a cool approach to Health planning, she commishions 'international experts' who make recommendations based on other countries and she accepts the word of these experts without reservations. A child would tell you Galway hospital is already over-stretched, there is no parking, there are no new beds, the staff are run off their feet. The question is when will this madness end? Probably when Harney resigns, Drumm resigns, or Cowan doesn't bottle it and fires Harney.
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Originally Posted by greengoose
