Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2013-07-04-Speech-4-048-000"
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"en.20130704.9.4-048-000"2
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"Mr President, first of all I want to thank the rapporteur for her important and comprehensive report. I think it is important because, in the middle of all the debate about austerity, about six-packs and two-packs, ESM and EFSF, sometimes we forget about real people, about ordinary people and how they are living with the impact of the current crisis. Some of those people are being asked to pay an unacceptably high price and that unacceptably high price is for them, their children and their elderly parents.
In some countries there is inadequate care provision; sometimes, there is virtually none. That is the reality of people’s lives and while we continue to debate and speak of austerity policies, we often forget, or at least we seem to accept, that some people suffer. The question is: are we prepared to let vulnerable people wait and wait, to be denied access to care. The answer to that is ‘yes’, because it is happening. In some countries, such as Greece, systems have broken down. In other countries, like my own – Ireland – the health system is severely stretched. It is fracturing in places and some people are paying a very high price.
Just last Saturday I spent one hour with the carers’ representative from my own region. She is extremely concerned about the mental and physical health of family carers and she told me that, in the region, not since January has one care package been approved. Not even one. That does not mean that people’s lives are immediately threatened, but it does mean two things. It means, first of all, that those who need care simply do not get it. They lose their dignity, and their quality of life is severely compromised, particularly for those with mobility or disability issues. They lose their independence and they lose any choice or control over their own lives.
Just imagine if that happened to us. How would we deal with that? And then the informal carers that the Commissioner spoke of are under unbearable pressure, stretched beyond limits with little or no assistance, no respite and real evidence of serious impacts on mental and physical health. As Jean said in her report, we need to carry out assessments of the social impact of austerity measures and how they affect people’s lives and we need to stop focusing entirely on fiscal stability and also look at access and quality of care."@en1
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