The HSE has been rocked in recent times with scandals and it would appear that they are getting very little right.
Hospital overcrowding, patients on trollies, misinterpreted cervical smears, failings in audiology services, staff shortages. it’s a mess and it seems that they’re even struggling with the simple things.
This morning I drove up to the HSE Community Equipment Services in Cork to collect a piece of equipment for my 99-year-old mother-in-law. I decided to go up before lunch to avoid the Friday afternoon traffic but of course, it was never going to be straight forward.
I got there at 12.15pm only to discover that they were closed. It would appear they’re not too fond of early starts because they don’t open up until 10.am. Then they close after a couple of hours, at 12 noon, so they can chill out and have a long lunch before they open again at 2pm. They work for two more hours and close at 4pm.
Maybe, handing out these bits and pieces to patients is very stressful and requires extreme concentration which prevents them from working normal hours, but it might help the rest of us if they put the opening times on the docket.