mary harney

ednwireland

Ms Harney told the Dáil this week that she knew someone who had been treated on a trolley in hospital who found the experience a "pleasant" one.

wtf is this woman on i cant beleive the neck she should never have been given the health ministership (mind you i dout anyone in ff would do it willingly)

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2007/0628/breaking67.htm

anyone got the original quote

themurt

From the article:
"Ms Harney told the Dáil this week that she knew someone who had been treated on a trolley in hospital who found the experience a 'pleasant' one."

I read the Irish Times article this morning and Mary Harney was commenting on the experience of one person. A comment of greater concern from the same piece would be the line: "There will always be people on trolleys and many people are treated on them," though she did go on to say: "The issue is the length of time someone must wait to be dealt with in an accident and emergency department"

I think the last part had an element of truth to it, if I or a friend or family member were in need of hospital treatment in an emergency I think how quickly they received and the quality of the treatment would be a more pressing concern that if they were in a bed or on a trolley.

mike65

Frankly I'm amazed its taken 3 days to get this on boards unless I missed a thread somewhere. The comment was as ill judged as can be, as health minister she could only note how poor conditions are and promise to do better. Associating trolley and pleasant smaked of let them eat cake even though she won't have intended any such sentiment. Needless to say its been grist to the mill of some in the meeja. Eamon Keanes Newtalk show has managed to make the Daily Mail seem proportionate with his exploitation of
Harneys comment.

Mike.

jjbrien

Doesnt this show how well Ireland has come on in 35 years My brother was born on a trolly in the corridor of Tullamore hosiptal 35 years ago. Today the goverment with all thier money still think its ok for people to be treated on a trolly in a hosital corridor. I would love to see Mary harny getting ill and going a public hospital as a public case.

heyjude

jjbrien wrote:

I would love to see Mary harny getting ill and going a public hospital as a public case.

Wouldn't wish ill health on Mary, but I doubt that if she did fall ill and needed treatment in a public hospital, that she would be treated in a public ward and there is no chance that Mary would spend days lying on a trolley in the corridor, a bed would conveniently become available ASAP.

Mick86

Harney, in common with most Irish politicians, has no conception of reality.

mickoneill30

What are the stats on trolly use? Are people spending minutes / hours / days on them. Does it happen in every hospital? Are there numbers to show us how bad it is? The media never likes to go into too much detail.
I was treated on a trolley a couple of years ago. While it wasn't pleasant (what kind of medical treatment is?) it only took me a couple of hours and I couldn't give two hoots whether I was on a bed or a trolly for it.

Breezer

While the thought did occur to me that some people wouldn't care whether or not they were on a bed or a trolly, I wonder is there something more to this statement than it seems at first glance. Isn't the whole purpose of co-location free up an extra 1,000 badly needed beds as quickly as possible? And now the Minister tells us that lying on a trolly is a pleasant experience, and that people will always be treated on one. Why, then, is there such a rush to have an extra 1,000 beds?

I suppose she could be saying that while trollies aren't so bad, beds are better, which is why we need extra ones quickly, although even then we need to accept that there will still be people on trollies, although there will be less of them. But if that's the case she phrased it very badly (even worse than I did there - God that was a long sentence!)

And if trolley's aren't so bad, why the rush for extra beds that is co-location? Would expansion of our existing public system not be better than a controversial proposal that could potentially cost the taxpayer? Even if Harney does not believe co-location will fail, why take the risk at all if there's no rush?

jmayo

jjbrien wrote:

Doesnt this show how well Ireland has come on in 35 years My brother was born on a trolly in the corridor of Tullamore hosiptal 35 years ago. Today the goverment with all thier money still think its ok for people to be treated on a trolly in a hosital corridor. I would love to see Mary harny getting ill and going a public hospital as a public case.

Latest I heard, during the week, was that women that had just given birth were transferred to wheel chairs because no beds were available in the maternity hospital.

So now you are on a trolley when you come into the world and when you depart.
Trully we are a great little country.

Yeah most of us are richer now, but jeeze don't get sick, unless of course you are one of the lucky ones that can afford a nice private health plan.
Even with private health insurance you are at the mercy of the hospitals A&Es.

Harney is just as arrogant as the rest of the overpaid government.
To have the gall to come out and say that someone told her being on a trolley was a pleasant experience, ranks of utter contempt for all those that are left to stew under the lights on trolleys in hospital corridors with no privacy.
What a nice way for the elderly and sick to leave this world.
The whole health situation and the nerve of making that type of comment just makes me so angry I want to ring that overweight cows neck.

What the hell is wrong with this country?
Will it only be when the ars* falls out of our supposed great economy that we as a nation cop on and get rid of the incompetents nitwits that run the place.
And I just don't mean the politicans.

I just hope that some of the voters that put the same eejits back in have to experience their idea of health care.

DublinWriter

ednwireland wrote:

wtf is this woman on i cant beleive the neck she should never have been given the health ministership (mind you i dout anyone in ff would do it willingly)

I used to respect Harney until she ended up in health.

Remember how she switched on the waterworks when she was questioned by a reporter about her mother being bumped up the waiting list for an op in Galway Regional Hospital a couple of years ago? Case-closed as far as the windy media were concerned.

joseph brand

I said it before. Mary Harney looks like Eric Cartman.

Now, would you like Cartman to be health Minister???



Maybe we could call her: Mary Harm-me 'OR' Mary Barmey.

Múinteoir

Been posted before, but worth posting again. Political thicko does Mary Harney.

Dirk Gently

I didn't think Harney could out do her previous quote when she said that more people buying private health insurance was a sign of more money in their pocket to spend rather than a symptom of a sick public health service. At least that was an ideology driven statement even if it was somewhat twisted but this latest quote would appear to be even more warped.

Villain

Next thing you know she will be saying her diet is a healthy one and everyone should follow the Minister for Health's example at living a healthy lifestyle.

I would love to meet here face to face.

Executive Steve

jmayo wrote:

So now you are on a trolley when you come into the world and when you depart.
Trully we are a great little country.

well, that's latter day free market capitalism for you.

we've gone from the state looking after you from the "cradle to the grave" to the state telling you off for getting trolleyed in between time spent on trolleys.

maybe one day we'll have a system of government that will look after us from the erection to the resurrection?


/jokes


in fairness, there's a grain of truth to what she's on about... sort of...

if i fall down the stairs and break an ankle and have to wait a few hours in casualty while they get someone to get the x-ray room ready, i don't mind TOO much if i don't get a nicely made up bed.

if i fall down the stairs and break my neck on the other hand, it's a different matter.

gbh

I'm no fan of Mary Harney, but I do know her mother died this week...so maybe you could postpone all this criticism until another time?

gbh

gbh wrote:

I'm no fan of Mary Harney, but I do know her mother died this week...so maybe you could postpone all this criticism until another time?

I doubt she spends much time reading the boards.ie politics forum.

The_Minister

DublinWriter wrote:

Remember how she switched on the waterworks when she was questioned by a reporter about her mother being bumped up the waiting list for an op in Galway Regional Hospital a couple of years ago? Case-closed as far as the windy media were concerned.

It was case closed because there was no evidence that she got special treatment. She was bumped up the list due to the severity of her condition, just as your mother or mine would be. Sicker patients get faster treatment. It was just the normal Irish press bollox, racing to prove that they are unfit to perform the duty that they are charged with.

karen3212

Isn't a trolley a bed with wheels?

BostonB

karen3212 wrote:

Isn't a trolley a bed with wheels?

In the same way a concrete floor is bed without wheels.

karen3212

BostonB wrote:

In the same way a concrete floor is bed without wheels.

Ha, Ha, Ha,

The last time I was in hospital, I was on a trolley, which was wheeled into the ward, and then transferred to a bed, which was exactly the same as the trolley I just got off of.

Just thought they were the same, except one was wheeled around more.

BostonB

Where was the bed?

Villain

The main problem with trolleys is not the physical trolley/bed itself its more the fact you are in a hallway rather than a ward, where you have no privacy at all and some of the older trolleys are not the bed on wheels.

My sympathies to Mary Harney on her mothers death but its not going to stop me critising her and the health department.

jmayo

[cm]tyranny wrote:

well, that's latter day free market capitalism for you.

we've gone from the state looking after you from the "cradle to the grave" to the state telling you off for getting trolleyed in between time spent on trolleys.

maybe one day we'll have a system of government that will look after us from the erection to the resurrection?

/jokes

in fairness, there's a grain of truth to what she's on about... sort of...

if i fall down the stairs and break an ankle and have to wait a few hours in casualty while they get someone to get the x-ray room ready, i don't mind TOO much if i don't get a nicely made up bed.

if i fall down the stairs and break my neck on the other hand, it's a different matter.

Did I ever say I wanted a nanny state?
Actually like all the Grumpy Old Men on BBC say there are two many rules nowadays. You can't do this or that in case you hurt yourself cr** or offend somebody.

Back to topic.
I don't have a problem with drunks being left to sit in their own vomit. It is self inflicted, actually they should be charged €200 if they visit casualty and €500 if an ambulance was involved. that would soon make them cop on.

Where I have the problem is that people who are desperately sick are treated like cra*.
They are left to sit on chairs in casualty or shoved onto trolleys out in public corridors because the system is badly run and badly planned.

Operations are postponed, new hospital wards remain shut because funding goes to pay for more admin staff or high paid consultants, new hospitals can not be opened due to supposed safety issues (nurses unions problem here),
cancer diagnosis is cr** and people are left untreated or undiagnosed because they have not been able to get appointments.
The list goes on.

Yes, they got rid of the health boards i.e. the Co. Councillors etc, but we still have all the administration and all the different HSE divisions.
Why do we need so many administration staff in the HSE for God's sake?
I actually agee with Harney that the consultants have it too good, they should be working shifts etc.

I know Harney's mother died recently but I am sure thanks to her daughters connections and her daughters ample salary she did not suffer like a lot of other people.
What about the family of that man in Cavan that was untreated whane he could have been saved or that little girl in Cavan that was sent home to die few days later.
What about all the victims of Neary, what about the lady that was misdiagnosed with cancer ?
The list is a very long one, yes some of them are unfortunate accidents but a lot of them are becasue the system is a complete mess.

She should not have said what she did, it came across as arrogant.
It was seen by the people that have to stomach the system as being condescending towards their suffering.