HEART BEAT:Our biggest white elephant is Nama, but we have others, writes MAURICE NELIGAN
ANOTHER PUCK has passed, a very successful one for the town of Killorglin. This year’s modified mayhem was accompanied by good weather, in contrast to the last few years. Now we return to reality.
The widely read Myanmar Ahlin newspaper in Rangoon recently described a lavish welcoming party for a recently discovered rare white elephant; such being a symbol of prosperity and contentment. There was a naming ceremony and the animal was then sprinkled with perfume.
“What’s this?” I thought. “We’ve got the biggest white elephant in the world and it certainly doesn’t smell of perfume; in fact, to put it indelicately, it stinks.” Our elephant has a name too, it’s called Nama. It hasn’t provided any prosperity yet, but we are assured that’s only a matter of time, 10, 20, 30 years but who’s counting? It will fill the national coffers with gold. You can believe that if you like.
Maybe we should export our gem to Burma where they revere such animals. I am greatly afraid that if we leave it here, it will run amok and make tatters of the little bit of our economy that hasn’t been mortgaged to save the wallahs in the banks. In any case while Nama is our biggest white elephant we’ve got lots more. They’re not rare over here at all and they belong to a genus called quangos.
In the health sector alone, we have two seasoned circus performers called the department and HSE. They are now being joined by the rapidly growing baby white elephant called Hiqa. In Thailand and Burma, such creatures are regarded as a mixed blessing. They don’t do any work and consume prodigious resources that could be better employed elsewhere. I suppose we’d be pushing our luck if we asked the Burmese to adopt this menagerie as well. We could then get back to designing a health service for our four million people, one that concerns itself with the succour of the sick.
In the past few weeks, these elephants have been trampling all around them. What one misses, the next one hits. The people are getting pretty fed up with this. All the buns are being snaffled by these rapacious trunks and there is precious little left for the sick. Worse still, many of the carers are being dispensed with to ensure that the trough remains full for this privileged group.
I am shortly to go to the storytelling festival on Clear Island and I’ll try out on you all a little anecdote about the antics of these marvellous creatures. Fadó, fadó, and well not that fadó really, because this fairy story is ongoing. In the town of Dingle or if you prefer, Daingean Uí Chúis just across Dingle Bay from me, there was a very old community hospital. It was 150 years old and had served the people in famine days and in cholera outbreaks in the past. This old hospital, St Elizabeth’s, at the time of my tale had 43 patients.
This ex-workhouse had one shower for 22 women and another for 21 men and was now unfit for purpose. The powers that be in the HSE stepped forward and built a new hospital, with 68 beds and more staff, to provide convalescence and minor treatment facilities as well as long stay and respite care. The local doctors would provide cover. The whole enterprise was forward looking and appropriate.
It cost €16.4 million. However, the white elephant brigade was at mischief again and playing games among themselves. The hospital has lain idle for 18 months. Then HSE stepped forward and announced it would finally open on July 27th. Good news at last. Well, ochone, ochone, it didn’t happen. The newest elephant, Hiqa, is supposed to have cast an evil spell on the building and is unwilling to register it until major modifications are made. There is some question that the rooms may be too small. These people are not accountable to the peasants.
You might well wonder why all this was not dealt with at the time of building. Do the elephants not talk to one another? As usual nobody will be responsible and nobody will be held to account. You couldn’t make this up, but remember it’s only a story.
They’re rapacious these creatures. Hiqa has its eye on Mallow hospital and the HSE wants to ingest Roscommon. These might prove indigestible. Keep the faith folk. These people have less than two years to go. And like the elephant, we won’t forget.