Healthcare lottery leaves our infirm in terror and medics at breaking point

But how can hope not fray in such a miserable acreage, a place that, amid the awful chorus of suffering, comes to resemble nothing so much as a desolate way station between this life and the next?

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These trolley slum towns are more than a desecration of decency, they amount to a breeding ground for the Grim Reaper, an invitation to death's Stormtroopers.

In such an apocalyptic hellscape, what hope have the gallant but over matched, understaffed doctors and nurses and support staff of holding back the terrible tide?

Last year an inquest at Dublin District Coroner's Court heard that a 35-year-old Dublin man, Gary Crowley, died in the emergency department of Tallaght University Hospital in 2021 after waiting 11 hours to see a doctor when he should have been categorised as a patient in need of "urgent" care and been seen within ten minutes.

The inquest further heard that Mr Crowley had called his sister from the hospital a few hours earlier to complain of severe pain all over his body, but felt he was being ignored by hospital staff.