Westmeath News

January 16 2012 : The grave situation in the Emergency Department at Midlands Regional Hospital Mullingar has been highlighted once more this week, as newly released figures revealed a shocking rise in the number of patients waiting on trolleys for a bed.

With more than 3,200 patients spending time on trolleys in Mullingar in 2011 - an increase of more than 3,000 since 2007 - it is easy to see why overworked and stressed staff are fearful that a major catastrophe is just around the corner.

Despite the difficult working conditions over the last four years, ED staff have continued to provide as good a service as possible to the people of Westmeath, but as the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation states, at present, the conditions in the department are not fit for purpose.

The closure of 41 in-patient beds and the moratorium on recruitment due to funding constraints have been cited as the main causes of the problem. At a time when billions of euro of taxpayers' money is being paid to bondholders who speculated on Irish banks and lost, it would be a tragedy of almost criminal proportions if a lack of cash led to even one death in Mullingar or any other hospital in Ireland.

Pensioners and tax

Around the country this week, there are senior citizens trying hard to make ends meet on their state pensions, and wondering to themselves: How am I going to afford to pay tax?

Most pensioners won't, in fact, be liable for tax, but the manner in which the state handled the announcement that it would be collecting taxes from those whose income is above a certain level was, plain and simply, horrendous.

Such is the confusion in the wake of last week's announcement that there are people now worrying - unnecessarily - about how they are going to be affected.

What is worse is that the announcement led to the impression that there was large-scale tax-dodging going on by pensioners, when the fact of the matter is that the revenue commissioners weren't even aware to whom the department of social welfare is paying pensions.

The least we can hope for now is that those pensioners who are liable for tax are treated fairly and sympathetically by the state that is at the root of the problem.