Sir, - Further to Vincent Browne's recent comments on psychiatrists, and his defence of his stance following a letter from Dr G.J. Calvert, I feel obliged to speak out about the position of the medical profession in general.
It appears that socialism among doctors is as rare as hen's teeth. For years we have been happy as a profession to reap the rewards of a system which is one of the most discriminatory in society.
I salute Vincent Browne for giving prominence to the shame of our psychiatric services. When I was a member of the Western Health Board I became aware of this scandal and, with a few others, voted against allowing the VEC to take over part of St Mary's Hospital in Castlebar before the plight of the long-term patients was improved. Yet a majority were happy to go with the system and accept promises of change. I believe little has changed since. Meanwhile, our students study in state-of-the-art accommodation (fair play to them).
In psychiatric services we see the discrimination in concrete terms. In medicine in general we see a more subtle form of discrimination against the weaker members of our society. We use our public hospitals to blatantly discriminate against the poorer sections of our society. Our three-tier system, particularly regarding waiting lists, is a disgrace. It is a disgrace to fat cats who get fatter as patients desperately scrounge to pay for services to which they should be freely entitled, a disgrace to us GPs who do not shout louder for those with no voice, and an absolute disgrace to our politicians, and administrators and the Medical Council.
We are told that a rising tide lifts all boats, but it also drowns those who have no boat. I call on the medical profession to stand up and be counted. Private medicine is OK, but not in public hospitals. Can we not act before it is too late? Let us act before a Vincent Browne of the future can accuse us of malpractice and neglect. - Yours, etc., Noel Rice GP,
Tourmakeady, Co Mayo.
P.S. Such is our system that the Medical Council may well censure me for speaking out!