Contempt is permanent.

We were reared in Blanchardstown in the fifties and sixties in a semi detached bungalow.Two bedrooms a kitchen a scullery and a bathroom.Cold taps alright but no hot water.Friday night was bath night.The scullery floor was covered with bath towels and a tin bath placed on top.Our mother boiled kettles and saucepans full of water to heat the bath and mixed cold water and hot to make the experience enjoyable.
One evening disaster struck Just after she had emptied a kettle full of boiling water into the bath a sister of ours stumbled and fell into it.She was badly scalded on both hands and up to her elbows.
Our mother often wondered what if and half blamed herself.My sister never did.
She was sent to hospital and over the years had a torrid time what with skin grafts on her hands for many many years until she stopped growing.The bones in her hands and fingers grew but the skin did not stretch to match and every few years the webbed skin between her fingers had to be cut through through surgery,
She did not let this impede her and grew up a confident and attractive woman even representing her country at schoolgirl level at volleyball.
Our father was a tradesman and when the opportunity arose got a mortgage and bought the house out.Despite having nine children and because of this we never qualified for a medical card.
For 15 years or thereabouts my mother had to take a red ten shilling note off the top of my fathers wage packet and send it to the hospital to pat y for my sister's treatment.This before any other expenditure.
We had little enough but that tore the arse out of it.
Fast forward sixty years.The Government have decided to withdraw and cease issuing medical cards to people with active cancer.This means that people will have to concurrently worry about raising money in the worst recession n in living memory while scared to death and  undergoing chemo ,radiotherapy and surgery and perhaps fight off debt collectors while seriously ill.
Anyone with a smidgin of compassion and even a shred of decency would not allow this to happen.
It is only when  the canker is terminal that these excuses for people will grant medical cards.
You have to die to get one.
This Government sees severe illness as an opportunity to bully the sick.
Yep,allow the deliberate death of the unborn .terrify the cancer sufferers and only relent when death is imminent.