We are well used to Sinn Féin cultivating the illusion that the Sinn Féin that has been administering Northern Ireland for most of the past two decades is a different one to that they are hoping to persuade voters in the rest of Ireland to elect to government.
They have absolutely no shame in using the term “healthcare” when pushing their demands for the nationalisation of the National Maternity Hospital as a euphemism for ever great liberalisation of abortion. This is cynical on several levels, not least being the fact that the last thing they want anyone to focus on is their own dismal record in Stormont where the health service in “our NHS” is no better in practical terms than the one under the aegis of the HSE.
Not only are waiting lists long, but it is difficult even to get exact statistics on them. That not only extends to the general public but to patients themselves which has prompted an investigation by the Public Services Ombudsman as to why “patients are not getting the information they need.”
Indeed in March this year the number of people who had been on hospital waiting lists in the north for more than a year was 60%, an increase of 20%. The corresponding figure for patients in the Republic was 20%, up from 12% in 2017. That means that a person is three times as likely to be waiting for an hospital appointment in Northern Ireland. So spare us the lectures, comrades.
The only “healthcare” they are able to ensure takes place efficiently in the part of Ireland they run for Westminster is abortion. Judging by their harangues on Tuesday it is also clearly their priority in “healthcare” in the rest of the country.