So at this stage, it's day 5 in the snow now, and i'm well and truly sick of it. The mac and internet have being keeping me sane to a point, but you even get bored of them after a while, not them specifically, but your just so bored of everything that nothing seems interesting.
I haven't seen paul all week, and this is not going down well lol, though i hope he'll be back next week, missing him lots. The mac demo that i was meant to do last saturday, and which i wrote about in a previous post, is scheduled for tuesday, but we will see how the weekend goes in terms of the weather. I hope it clears up, as i'm going crazy stuck inside. I did get to the better options fair on tuesday though, with some assistance from my mum to a bus stop, and it did go good, though maynooth is still where i want to go. I fink I'll just put down arts in a few other colleges, because i don't want to pay for CAO and not get my money's worth from it.
Now, my main reason really for writing this post, apart from a way to vent my frustration about not being able to go out, is the health service in this country.
With what is certain to be one of the toughest budgets this country has seen in years only days away, my question is, though i know the government will cut public spending in every area, can they really afford to cut anymore from the health service, specifically in the area of patient health care, I mean, in the area of staffing? Why am i asking questions like this? Let me explain.
2 weeks ago or there a bouts, my grandfather, who is 88, suffered a stroke, and a serious one at that. Over the past 2 weeks, I have listened to stories, about the good and the bad, in terms of his condition, but more recently, and more shockingly, in terms of the care he has been receiving, from the so-called carers who are employed at the hospital, i guess they are supposed to be aids to the nurses, though from what i hear they don't deserve their jobs.
Tonight, once again, my grandfather's sheets had to be changed, as he was left unattended with a bedpan, and when the carer, as she's called, came to change the sheets, not only was she rude and not only would she not speak to him, but apparently, she was rough with him, physically. Now if this is what people who are going to visit my grandfather, and people in hospitals are seeing when they're present, doesn't it make you sick, and sad, to think how those people, who are defenseless and probably haven't got the capacity anymore to speak for themselves are being treated when they're on their own? I know it certainly does me. That's why i can't understand, how next tuesday, the minister for finance for this country, will get up, and after he's announced his cuts to social welfare for the poorest and most vulnerable of his people, he'll announce cuts, as he always does, to the health service, and as he always does also, to the area of mental health, which is where the money is really needed. Not only does the area not need cuts, but it needs more stringent testing and vetting of these people who by all accounts have neither the personality or the skills to care and have compassion for these people.
Next tuesday will only confirm what we already know though, that this country is in deep trouble in all areas, not least in the area of funding to it's health services which are vitally important. Isn't it a disgrace, that people cannot have the compassion and the patience to care for the people in our society who have helped to shape the country into what it was in the good years? I personally think it's a disgrace, and it's stories like that which i heard tonight, which would make me ashamed to be irish, I'm not saying by any means that everyone who works in our health service is this way, just had to vent somewhere that's all.
