We’ll Have Trouble Coping With Asylum Seekers Says Moville Doctor
Coping with Asylum Seekers
One of the most poignant parts of the evening at the Asylum Seekers meeting in Glencrow Hall was when a local doctor from Moville Health Centre said that he was very troubled about how they would cope with the Asylum Seekers and the illnesses and conditions they may have.
He said that it was not something that he was looking forward to – especially with such little notice.
Basically, the Moville doctors have expertise in, and experience in fixing, the type of illnesses that Moville people get.
They don’t have expertise in some of the illnesses that some of the Asylum Seekers may have.
Asylum Seekers Illnesses
After all, how many Moville people come to them with malaria, Deng Fever, Swamp Fever or Sleeping Sickness – or indeed AIDS.
Then there are the psychological problems those Asylum Seekers coming from a war zone may have.
How many people in Moville have they treated for shell shock?
The Doctors in Moville are Generalists.
If they need some extra expertise they send patients to specialists.
More Expensive to Treat Asylum Seekers
As they don’t have the expertise to deal with many of the problems the Asylum Seekers have they may have to send a higher percentage of them to Specialists.
That will take a larger chunk out of their Budget for treating local people.
And they have been told that there will be no extra resources from the Justice Ministry and the RIA agency.
They would have to apply, through the normal channels, for any extra funds or resources.
And that certainly won’t be ready for the first Asylum Seekers coming in the first week of December.
Hiding From Local People
What the RIA and the Justice Department should have done was to liaise with the local doctors’ surgery and the local schools, to identify the extra burden to be put on them so that they could apply for extra resources well in advance.
However, that would have alerted local people and local politicians to the fact that the Caiseal Mara hotel would be taking in 100 or more Asylum Seekers.
And they would not have wanted that.
Eugene Banks of the RIA stated that there was no attempt to deceive people or to keep the process secret.
However, they took steps to make sure that Moville people were not alerted even though this meant keeping the coming extra burden from those who needed to know in advance.
As a result an extra burden has been placed on health and education services by the Asylum Seekers long before those responsible for them locally are able to apply and get extra resources.
Once again it is most important to say that this is not the fault of the Asylum Seekers, who will no doubt get a lot of the blame, which should almost totally lie with the Justice and Equality Minister, Charlie Flanagan, and the RIA agency.