“Second Class Healthcare for Monaghan Citizens” – Cllr. Brian McKenna

A 62 year old recovering from a broken arm in Navan hospital, dressed only in tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt, was put in a taxi and sent home by the hospital recently. The Monaghan man, who a few days earlier had fallen down the stairs and broke his arm, was told, when he rang for an ambulance, that he wasn’t bad enough to send an ambulance out to him. North Monaghan Sinn Fein councillor Brian McKenna has described the treatment of this man as “an absolute disgrace in this day and age and just proves that when it comes to healthcare, Monaghan people are treated as second class citizens. “This man, who is single and lives alone, lay in his own house for about seven hours with a badly smashed arm because he didn’t want to annoy family members following the refusal of the ambulance service to collect him. He was discovered by his brother the following morning in a distressed state and was brought by car to Cavan hospital. He subsequently had his arm fixed up in Navan hospital and despite the hospital administration being advised he lived on his own, they proceeded to eject him from the hospital without any attempt to provide home help for this man. “We are presently trying to secure some home help hours for him as he cannot cook or indeed get dressed without help. I, for one, will not accept this treatment of Monaghan people and will continue to highlight these outrageous practices by those tasked with providing ‘healthcare’ to our people. “When the Fianna Fáil government were downgrading Monaghan hospital we were advised that there would be rehabilitation beds in Monaghan where patients who had procedures carried out in other hospitals would be repatriated to Monaghan hospital to recuperate. However, increasingly the HSE are now trying to send those patients directly home, thereby breaking their promises on what services people could expect in the future. People need to stand up to these bully-boy tactics and hold the HSE accountable to their promises. “This is far from the healthcare promised by James Reilly and Fine Gael when in opposition about how things would be different when they got into power. The reality is that there is not one jot of difference between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil policies and it’s long past time they took Mary O’Rourke’s advice and amalgamate. These will not be forgotten easily by those who suffer the consequence of James Reilly’s broken promises”, concluded Cllr. McKenna.