Madam, – As someone with a chronic medical condition, I attend an out-patient department at a large Dublin hospital twice a week for dressings.
This invaluable service is disrupted every bank holiday weekend, with staff having to fit patients in as best they can on other days to make up for the cancelled Mondays.
Between bank and public holidays – not to mention Christmas and Easter – it seems to me our hospitals are closed too long, with no doctors and no out-patient services available other than at A&E departments.
I have spent an eternity of such “closed” periods trying vainly to cope with heavy weeping from my ulcerated legs, using paper (kitchen) rolls which are hopelessly inadequate. (Neither the appropriate dressings, nor anything comparable, are available under the Drug Payment Scheme and are not stocked by chemists.) I assume that it is the fault of the HSE and/or Department of Health that this situation obtains; and I hope the electorate will keep it in mind when voting time comes round again.
Instead of clogging up our letter-boxes with promotional literature telling us what splendid people they are, our politicians would do well to devote more time and money to devising a better system for patients everywhere who are dependent on such vital services.
People who have not experienced it cannot know the torment of leg ulcers or the discomfort of remaining for days and nights in crumpled sodden bandages, which makes sleeping or obtaining any kind of rest or relief impossible. It completely destroys the sufferers quality of life.
I am aware of a research project currently underway at NUI Galway, of which I have great hopes, but for now it would appear there is no alternative to compression bandaging for this very painful, horrible condition. – Yours, etc,