Invest in health staff, not bureaucrats (From Western Telegraph)

Invest in health staff, not bureaucrats

Dear Editor, - Despite spending the vast amount of extra money made available to the health service by the present Government, the National Assembly has recently been severely criticisedfor its general failure to reduce hospital waiting times and its failure to invest in the extra front line professionals.

Moreover what we now see going on at Withybush seems to be microcosmal of thismalaise. One consultant has been suspendeddespite his acknowledgedmedical capacity, and another 23 consultants writing to the Western Telegraph to protest about the general state of the hospital.

Against that background it seems preposterous that the hospital'schief executive, Frank O'Sullivan, still imagines that hisletter to the Telegraph might leave him with any credibility.

For if I have to go into hospital I want to be treated by qualified doctors, nurses and consultants, and not chief executives or hospital administrators.

So if, as now seems patently clear,the latter no longer have the confidence of theformer, the sooner they are replaced by people who do, the better.

DAVID GREEN Rhyd yr Harding, Castlemorris.