Minister bringing good news to Mayo warns of manipulation from abroad

When the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, was in Castlebar last Friday, he communicated a very positive message about the future of Mayo University Hospital.

It related mostly to a 30% reduction in the number of patients left on trolleys despite a 20% increase in presentations since January, the decrease in outpatient waiting lists and a rise of 300 in staff numbers since Covid broke out in 2020.

Anybody who has visited the emergency unit at Castlebar will realise the situation there still borders on the chaotic at times, but at least there is finally a recognition that the modus operandi at the unit has been pretty poor for many years and the minister’s statement suggests there has been a turning point in that respect while ongoing progress is also being made on the planned extension to the facility.

Taking everything into account, matters are looking much brighter than they were a relatively short time ago when Mayo University Hospital (MUH) stumbled from one crisis to another.

The centre is still without a resident oncology consultant, having to share one with University Hospital Galway.

This is far from good enough and further proves the theory that cancer patients living in the west of Ireland are not receiving the same levels of services as those in the east of the country.

How can any government or Minister for Health stand over this?

Before Minister Donnelly completed his media commitments regarding the improving state of health in the MUH parish, he made a point of drawing attention to a report on the Sky News website, entitled ‘How international social media users are stoking Ireland's migration debate’.

The report was based on analysis by members of the Sky News data and forensics unit which discovered that US users were responsible for most posts on X (formerly Twitter) mentioning the location of the recent violent protest in Newtownmountkennedy, thus revealing the role played by international users in stoking the division.

Regular uses of X will not be surprised by this data, but the general public may not have been aware of the sheer extent of this outside influence in respect of a very sensitive issue in Ireland that will play into the outcome of next June’s local and European elections.

As Minister Donnelly himself put it: “Many decent Irish people are being lied to, misled and ultimately manipulated from abroad.”

Sadly, that’s the reality.