When talk turns to Irish reunification, the weapon most frequently wielded in the argument is health. Unionist and many nationalists will point to the fact that you can get a visitor to your doctor for free in the North, whereas in the South you’re going to have to stump up somewhere between €45 and €70 for a GP visit. They may also point out that many if not most people in the South have to take private health insurance.
Certainly the NHS is a wonderful system – but if you live in the North, tell me this: when did you last try to get to see your GP? And how long did it take? And supposing you do get to see him or her about that hip of yours which is giving you so much pain, and after another longish wait you get to see a consultant, who tells you that you need a hip replacement, how long do you think you’ll have to wait to get it? I’m in the happy state that both my hips are more or less still working, but those who have gone for hip replacement – and this is just one example – find themselves waiting in pain for up to two years.
That, as I say, is just one example. Had your teeth seen to recently? Or your eyesight checked? I’m guessing you didn’t come out without having had to dig fairly deep into your own pocket.
In today’s Irish Times, there’s an interesting letter commenting on all this. The letter-writer points out that life expectancy in the South ls longer than in the North and that Covid deaths in the UK were 80% higher in the UK than in the South.
Another letter-writer today cites a global study conducted in 2017 by the Lancet, rating 192 countries in terms of their quality of healthcare and access to it. Guess what? The UK was ranked in 30th place, the south of Ireland 13th.
I wouldn’t for a moment declare all is well in health south of the border, but it would appear to be a lot better than the parroted view of many. The North’s NHS has its strengths and the South’s system has its weaknesses, but that’s what a citizens’ assembly looking at a new Ireland should be doing – seeing how the strengths on both side of the border could be fused.
Like the fake £10 billion subvention we supposedly get every year from Mother Britain, it’s maybe time people began to deal with the health facts, not the spoonfuls of health falsehoods.
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