WHEN the health of a loved one fails, it's time for a senior medic to step in and break the bad news.
That's what Professor Mark Taylor, one of the most respected health professionals in the North, did this week when he branded the current pressures on the service "a perfect storm".
His announcement did not surprise a weary public which has witnessed the NHS wither away over the past decade-and-a-half.
The symptoms are clear: Interminable waiting lists — the worst in Western Europe — dysfunctional A&E departments, hospitals which can't open due to super-bug infections, and a domestic care service which is on its knees.
Equally clear is that to resolve this crisis — exacerbated, undoubtedly, by Tory austerity policies in London — there is a need for an emergency intervention. Any hope that the new Labour administration would act to mitigate the crippling effects of two long decades of Tory vandalism have been swept away in a cloud of anger and disillusion. Keir Starmer has made it abundantly clear in double quick time that he and his gormless Chancellor see their first responsibility as being to the markets and not to the needy, taking their lead from the opinion columns of the political and financial press whose solution is always ‘hit the poor’.
Leading from the front, Health Minister Mike Nesbitt deserves commendation for doing his best with limited resources. Yet his winter woes — hundreds 'trapped' in hospitals because care packages weren't available to allow their discharge and over 200 ill patients waiting, many of them in ambulances, for admission — have been chastening not just for Minister Nesbitt but for all our political leaders.
And it's not as if the nature of the needed emergency intervention isn't known. The Bengoa Report with its promise of genuine health reform and meaningful improvements has been on the Executive's priority list for almost a decade.
Admittedly, the absence of ministers for two crucial periods during that decade delayed implementation of Bengoa but with their feet now firmly under the cabinet table, it's time for our political leaders to, well, lead.
This week First Minister Michelle O'Neill rightly pointed out that ameliorating our "dire and diabolical" health pressures is the work of the entire Executive. That's an important first step but the corollary of that statement is that the biggest party in the North — Sinn Féin — needs to drive forward the solution.
Becoming the biggest party in the six counties brought added prestige to Sinn Féin but it also brought added responsibility — not least to sort out our ailing health service.
If ever there was a time for the party to step up, it's now. Sitting on the sidelines is no longer an option. Sinn Féin may not hold the health ministry in the Executive but it's high time they acted as if they did. Otherwise, that senior medic may have to call in the family for an even graver conversation.
