Sod the EuroMillions, I’m Already Entered into the Postcode Lottery!
By Caitlín Small
Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry City has a 22-bed maternity unit which faces an unfortunate temporary shutdown after continually failing to recruit consultants. Expectant mothers must now switch their delivery plans to Craigavon Hospital, which may not appear as a big deal, granted that the hospitals are only a 30-minute drive apart.
However, the plan explicitly ignores rural mothers-to-be. For women from the BT34 area of South Down, in areas like Kilkeel and Attical, travel time could now double, creating a wider margin for error and a chance for something to go drastically wrong. Ruptured placentas, heavy traffic, mechanical failure, excessive bleeding, foetal distress… the list continues eternally.
It is distressing to think about how Daisy Hill Hospital has essentially been left to rot over the past few decades; meanwhile, taxpayer money is funnelled into other interesting streams.
If there was ever a discussion point of such can-of-wormery, it is Drumcree: £5.5 million on policing the dispute, when rural pregnant women are quite literally at risk, is perhaps the best display of this country’s priorities. I’m not saying Drumcree residents don’t deserve protection, but rather that the issue was left to grow unnecessarily.
Two more big bad words no one wants to provide any attention to: Lough Neagh. An amalgamation of private/public ownership, with a few co-ops thrown in for good measure. So, although Lough Neagh Partnership Ltd technically manages the water within, the Earl of Shaftesbury owns the bed and soil beneath.
Ever so graciously, he offered the rights for a fee of £6 million about a decade ago, which the government denied, it is said, for reasons unknown to us. Realistically, it is because everyone understands Stormont cannot (and will not) sit with the stability required to handle an issue like this. Sectarianism comes first, of course.
This sale would have ended the sovereign immunity the Earl enjoys, as 200,000 tonnes of sewage are dumped into the Lough’s catchments annually.
And so, instead of actively funding the country for future generations through long-term investment, the government prioritises short-term reactionary political issues, anything to get a soundbite.
These are no novel arguments, that is sure, but before we allow ourselves to be swallowed up by hatred for one another over government-permitted issues, we should remember. They don’t hate each other as much as they want us to.
An Executive that fails to protect existing life and those about to be brought into it can only harm our health, and really, what good is a “political victory” if you won’t be here to celebrate it?
