HSE-style democracy: ‘Our way or highway’

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

The HSE West Regional Health Forum is supposed to be a place where democratically elected representatives from counties right across the West, from Donegal to Limerick, question hospital managers and pen-pushers about how the public health service is run.

County and City Councillors, including a handful from Galway, use the forum to hold hospital management to account.

It is a useful arena to raise genuine concerns about problems in University Hospital Galway, Merlin Park and Portiuncula in Ballinasloe.

Councillors submit written questions in advance, and they are provided with answers at the meeting.

They can also ask follow-up, supplementary questions, and health officials are at the forum to respond orally.

It is a very open and fair system, even if the method of submitting questions in advance doesn’t allow for contemporaneous and topical issues of the day to be highlighted.

At the most recent meeting, City Councillor Pádraig Conneely (FG), attempted to raise the case of an elderly woman who died on a trolley while waiting to be admitted to UHG’s Emergency Department.

The tragedy occurred after the cut-off point for the submission of questions, and he was disallowed from raising it under Any Other Business. But they’re the rules.

No doubt he’ll table a question for the next meeting, and will not let it go. Nor should he.

Of more concern to democrats was the attempt by the executive to block and dissuade them from highlighting an issue of concern that they had with the Health Minister.

Members passed a motion calling on Simon Harris to re-open the Accident and Emergency Department at Roscommon Hospital.

One Roscommon councillor noted that the TD for Galway/Roscommon, Denis Naughten, had taken the ‘King’s shilling’ – a reference to the former FG TD who left the party over Roscommon Hospital, but who was now happy to serve as an independent Minister in Government that has stood over the decision he had protested so much about in the first place. But we digress.

The motion to reinstate Roscommon A&E was voted on and passed by a show of hands.

Managers, however, were not happy.

Before the vote, Ann Cosgrove, Chief Operating Officer at the Saolta group of hospitals, warned there were “no plans to reopen the Emergency Department” at Roscommon.

Tony Canavan, Chief Officer of Saolta, went further. “You can vote on it, you can pass it (the motion) but it won’t get past the top table because we don’t endorse it,” he said.

The health chief stopped short of patting them on the heads before sending them home with the motion between their arse cheeks.

In fairness, Canavan later backed down and – bless him – said the democratically elected councillors could send the motion to Harris, but with a note attached to say the unelected executive don’t agree with it.

Wasn’t that nice of him.

FF in dog house

Fianna Fáil is in the dog house.

The party’s three elected members on the City Council were rapped on the knuckles during Monday’s budget meeting.

As Chief Executive, Brendan McGrath, outlined in detail the contents of the budget, and responded at length, and in even greater detail to the questions asked by elected members about the budget, the FFers were getting restless.

Maybe they wanted to get home to watch celebrities in a jungle. But the more McGrath talked, the more bored they were getting.

Like schoolboys down the back of the class, they were fidgeting with their computers and phones, and chatting among themselves.

In fairness, Mike and Ollie Crowe and Peter Keane weren’t the only offenders – showing common courtesy to speakers in the chamber is a rule often not adhered to in Galway City Council these days.

But at one point McGrath couldn’t hear himself speak over the hubbub created by the FF whispers.

“I’m sorry to go on at length . . . I’m trying to be as open and transparent as possible,” he said.

He said he got off his sick-bed to come to the meeting and clearly wasn’t best pleased with some councillors’ attention spans.

And he said he would ‘shut-up’ if they weren’t interested in what he had to say.

“With respect,” responded Mike Crowe. “We’ve got some of them answers already (from other Council officials). There’s a bit of repetition there.”

Brendan then took the hump, and again said he’d say nothing more. And then classroom swots – many of whom were whispering and not paying attention to Brendan either – urged him to keep talking.

He obliged, but Brendan’s encore was very short.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.