For most of this year, I’ve had trouble with an ongoing eye issue which, thanks to it being wrongly diagnosed as allergies, got worse to the point my vision is sometimes basically nought in one eye.
I’m also still waiting to see the consultant who gave me four weeks’ worth of a prescription and sent me on my way back in July.
I start with that so you can believe me when I say I have skin in the game here and I also have the utmost respect for those working in our healthcare system, even the ones who fail to spot conjunctivitis, but the political structure itself is beyond merely creaking.
In writing this, I do also recognise in less development countries, such as America, I couldn’t afford to see a consultant without coming out with a big bill, but still it’s been a long wait to see this doctor again.
Politicians
The health and social care service isn’t perfect, in some areas it is pretty awful, go ask the vulnerable adult who is sat in prison instead of getting the help he needed what he thinks after no-one in mental health or social care responded to requests from the probation service to see him.
That is one example and I am sure it would not take me that long to find more people that feel let down.
In amongst this, we have the Chief Minister and Health Minister operating in a cold war of words to the benefit of nobody, Tynwald being asked whether another politician should be overseeing Manx Care and we have another large overspend/underfund.
Stone Tablets
I see like this, and feel free to tell me I’m wrong because it won’t be the first time and it won’t be the last, Manx Care is not universally liked, the public have still not bought into it as a model that can say it has actually improved anything that the DHSC couldn’t have done.
Tynwald has, but seeing as several senior politicians created it, they have to stick to their guns and carry on down the road without looking back to check whether it really was a good idea.
So, while it may not be perfect, the public may not buy into it and people, including the Chief Minister, are perfectly entitled to be questioning if all the money is being spent the right way, we are stuck with Manx Care until the circle of Manx political life comes back around and it is all brought back into the DHSC.
It may not be this Tynwald, or the next, but one day, they’ll consider it.
In accepting we are where we are, we also have to be clear, Sir Jonathan Michael did not walk to the island across the sea, nor was his report carried down from Snaefell carved into tablets of stone, not everything he said is gospel and certainly not all of it is possible.
But what is helping no-one is this political point scoring, no matter what the rhetoric, that mythical money tree is not going to flower and it is time our politicians were honest about what needs to be done or if they really can’t work within the boundaries set down in a budget they voted for, then it’s time to go.
We either need to say our system is some backwater where we just ship everything beyond a tonsillectomy off to the UK, or we get real about what can be delivered and what it will actually cost and how it is going to be funded, because the annual pilgrimage for more cash is just not financially or politically sustainable.
2026
People may stomach giving up more of their heard earned money if they could see a service that is improving and delivering, but if they don’t, the Manx public have long memories and a history of ousting politicians who have stuck to their guns when public opinion turned.
In fact, I’d go so far as being willing to wager that, if things don’t improve quickly, someone is going to stand in the election in just under two years time calling for Manx Care to be shut down.
And, unless they are a total nutter, I wouldn’t bet against them winning.
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