Medical Internationalism

It has always been taken as a given that the National Health Service would be the hill on which the dream of a United Ireland would die. People who had had that for 80 years were never going to vote to lose it for a point of sentimental principle.

But it is the Irish Government that is now funding 300 nursing placements in Belfast, while, brokered by Fermanagh and Omagh District Council, Western Health and Social Care Trust is in negotiations to bring in the Cubans to sort out the staffing crisis at South West Acute Hospital in Enniskillen.

If the United States did not care for any more of the latter, then it could easily afford to fund an all-Ireland NHS. The only problem might be the number of Irish-Americans who would move back to the Old Country in order to avail themselves of it. But Cuba is moving into Northern Ireland. One to watch.