I read lots of blogs. I should get out more. I should be sleeping.
One of the blogs I used to read was Cancerbaby. She died last week and I cried and cried. Amanda posted this last week looking for money to help Chester who is dying and can’t afford palliative care and who is still being assessed for eligibility for benefits, in America. What kind of a country let’s people die without pain relief? The same country that produces people like Amanda and Cancerbaby, I suppose, eloquent, passionate and angry.
My friend the heart surgeon has worked in American hospitals for many years and she said to me that because the primary care system there is so inadequate, when (poor) people get to hospital they are usually a lot sicker than they would be in Ireland. Mind you, she also said that once they get into hospital the care and equipment tends to be much better than it is in Ireland. For all the faults of the Irish medical system (where people get to die on trolleys in nurses tea stations, so dying with dignity is out), I don’t think that what’s happening to Chester would ever happen in Ireland.
I was talking to my husband about this and he said “yes, apparently, has the highest rate of infant mortality in the developed worldâ€. All this can’t be right in one of the richest countries in the world, it just can’t.
