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Wednesday 22 May 2013
REVEALED: HSE FAILED TO RESPOND TO BID TO SAVE HOSPITAL BUS
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The fact that this valable bus service provided by Marleys for Donegals sick people has been allowed to be stopped is a disgrace! It is an example of how little value is put on the lives & contributions made by Donegal people. The fact that Marleys are prepared to cut their cost’s and this was still not accepted, we the people of Donegal should not be accepting this. How much is paid in travel expenses to our politicans. The Goverment, Dept of Health, & The HSE took away this major health service in the form of a bus in Donegal for sick people in a week where the Government & Dept of Transport decided to bail out CIE by €36 million. Disgraceful!! CIE will not stop the bus when Donegal people are sick or unwell. Remeber €36million for CIE & Donegal sick folk aren’t worth €50,000 a year!!!
It doesn’t surprise me or im sure anyone else what the HSE do regarding health. They complain all the time about lack of funds etc.
Why didn’t they take over the car park instead of giving it to a private company.
Does anyone know or could they tell how much these Euro car parks make a day.
They were sending patients from the general hospital to the clinics over in St Conals by private taxi’s costing more money. Why don’t they use ambulances when there not in use. i feel sorry for the nursing staff but the HSE are like all state bodies. TO MANY CHIEFS AN NOT ENOUGH INDIANS. There’s to many running around with brief cases using them for lunch boxes. Fair play to Marley Coaches for the job you were doing until that body (HSE) thought on themselves and not the patients.
Well said Mr T.
Its better management thats needed. Dont hold yer breath though – there is a huge entitlement culture in this country, from the welfare state to the public sector.
And well done Marley for trying.
@ Mr T
Most of the money from Euro car parks goes to Spain as its a Spanish company that owns it. If the hospital had taken over that car park then they would have made millions a year.
Its the same with the NCT its a Spanish company that owns it.
Pump 30 million into cie and the sick In Donegal can just be quiet and die, the country is finished
What a caring society!
You can bet your bottom dollar that this
vital issue was NOT on the agenda when Ireland’s elite came to the Glenties parliament
during the week.
Questions not answered 1) how many pts travel on this service each week? 2) Is the taxpayer getting value for money over the years? 3) I take it people will take public transport to Dublin (ie a bus) so whats the difference. The olny difference is the drop off in Dublin that I can see. So, can the HSE pay pts a contribution for a taxi for pts when the reach Dublin? Makes sense me thinks. We are so keen to knock services that are taken away without looking at alternatives. I am a tax payer and would like these questions answered! I probably wont get one
disgraceful
When will people learn over there! I left Donegal a few months ago. I stood back and watched very closely as a government and local government basically implodeded upon itself and the county. Donegal DOES NOT MATTER to the rest of Ireland! The rest of the world and those from Donegal are laughing at the state of our county! You are being CUT off boys and girls plain and simple! Only when you leave Donegal will you see that. All the egg throwing and protests will get you no where! Grow a set of b*lls and break.away from the government that basically hates you and do ur own thing! Make ur own taxes, pay your own way, fix your own problems, then maybe some of us young ones will come home! Until the leaders of Donegal make a concise decision to stand up together and say no more messing about, we want a little bit of liberty here (we paid in taxes for it) none of us ‘lost generation’ are comin home! Why would we? You all live over there saying NOTHING! Stand up little bitches and bring us home! We only left cos we had nothing else! Amen.
@ Shamie
Like yourself, I’m a taxpayer and have had the benefit of using the service in question once a couple of years back. As I recall, it did cost about 12 quid and picked me up at LK General and dropped me off at whatever hospital I had to go to in Dublin. Great assistance from the bus driver as I was not a well person at the time and had real difficulties in getting about and indeed in knowing what I was at due to medication.
On a subsequent attempt to use the service, I was told by whoever in ambulance control in Sligo that I couldn’t use the service as I didn’t have a medical card – even though I was paying anyway? My question in that case would be – why? I would have paid whatever was asked. CIE was about 19 quid return at the time, I think. I ended up taking CIE in that instance, and had to lug myself halfway across Dublin and back. Not a fun experience that time around.
The above is my personal experience. I had occasion some weeks ago to be party to a conversation about this service or removal of it, to be more exact, which raised an interesting point. What about folks that have to use it to go to Dublin for, as the conversation went, for cancer treatment – specifically those with urinary or bowel problems that maybe need to have a bus with a toilet or need to stop along the way for bathroom needs? I can’t see an express CIE service accommodate that. So, chalk this one up to anecdotal evidence of the value of this service to some people. Granted the bus I was on was something like a 20 seat Merc and I didn’t notice a toilet on it but then as I said, I was so heavily medicated at the time I’m lucky I remember that much. I think the bus was about 3/4 full both ways.
As a taxpayer myself, I don’t begrudge subsidizing services like this for folks in society who need it, when they need it.
I hope these answers have been useful. A measure of how good we are as a civilized society is how we treat the young, old, sick and vulnerable among us. It’s never been measured by how efficiently taxpayers money is spent, which is just as well.
Hey how come Marleys can now knock €50,000 a year off the cost when their backs are against the wall, does this mean they were fleecing us all the time , why not knock of €50,000 las year or the year before when fuel was cheap ,