OPINION: Locked in a nightmare of the State’s making

Last Wednesday afternoon I sat at a kitchen table and watched a Mayo woman cry for her life. It is a moment I will never forget.
I had been invited into her home because she felt talking to The Mayo News was her last hope. She was exhausted, frustrated and fearful. She was angry, tired and helpless. That colourful room was a tough place to be on Wednesday as the rain pelted off the window panes.
Two weeks ago I wrote in this newspaper about the human cost of opportunities lost. I wrote about the inadequate road system we have in Mayo and the lives sacrificed as policymakers look the other way.
On Wednesday last, I witnessed at firsthand the human cost of our bumbling, banana-republic-style health system. Over the years, our out-of-touch lawmakers have allowed our nation’s healths service become little more than a sticking plaster on a gaping wound. Top heavy with bureaucracy and desk staff, the system that should be world class is nothing short of a shambles.
How can I say this? What evidence have I to back this up?
How long have you got?
GPs throughout Mayo tell me of their daily struggles trying to find consultant appointments for their patients, particularly in the neurology and urology sectors. The GP service itself needs urgent and massive attention, and now those overstretched doctors find it almost impossible to find timely appointments for their patients who need further investigation.
There was a time when hundreds of thousands of Irish people could slightly circumvent this situation by paying through the nose for health insurance. This ‘second mortgage’ gave people who could afford it the security of knowing they could access private health care if they needed urgent care. Now even this strategy is pointless.
We’ve been told on a few different occasions over the years that this island is ‘awash with money’, so the very idea of having to pay through the nose for health insurance is a thundering disgrace. However, once again, the people of Ireland shrugged their shoulders, put the head down, said nothing and kept those who kept the status quo in power. 
Of course, when there was no push back, things only got worse, and on Wednesday last I witnessed the human cost of decades of ineptitude.
The proud Mayo woman, who has served her community proudly over the years, was broken. Witnessing her devastation was harrowing.
A few months ago, she felt numbness in her leg, and when it occurred on an almost daily basis she went to her doctor. An MRI followed in The Galway Clinic. The results showed discolouring on the brain and an urgent appointment with a neurologist was required. The GP emailed the consultant looking for an appointment.
The patient could hardly sleep with worry, and of course delved into the internet and spent hours reading about the worst possible outcomes for her condition. After two weeks she heard nothing back from the consultant so she rang the secretary, only to be told that she would have to wait eleven months for an appointment.
To say she was stunned doesn’t scratch the surface.
This woman, has worked and paid tax to our nation since she was 17. She has contributed hugely to the community and to the sporting sector and never asked for anything in return, because she wanted to contribute to society in her own inimitable manner.
She has paid PRSI (or whatever it’s called now) all her working life. She has paid health insurance for more than 20 years (even though she never had to spend a day in hospital) and now, when she needs timely intervention, she has to wait almost a year.
On Wednesday last, I sat at her table as she took me through her story and outlined her sense of utter helplessness.
She was a shadow of her former self. Her husband carried a well of tears behind his eyes. They were locked in a nightmare.
Their entire world revolved around what was happening in the woman’s brain. Very little else found space in their minds, but they would have to wait eleven months before someone could see them.
Decades of poor management of our health system has left it in an utter shambles. Over the years there have been numerous opportunities to make it into the first-rate service the people deserve. Numerous opportunities to streamline it – to put a proper system in place for our GPs and consultants – have been ignored, and now its broken beyond repair.
The human cost of opportunities lost doesn’t bother some, but it tears at my heart.