as an asthma sufferer who got the stuffing knocked out of me last winter with a dose of flu, and suffered attack after attack while having to be up and take care of the rest of the house i am very worried about catching any flu again this year. not being able to breathe is a scary experience and one i dont like to have often. I take my maintenance meds everyday and do all the right things, yet the thought of another flu episode scares me.

My main worry is that the HSE will be incapable of managing the situation were it to escalate.

What is the state of readiness within the HSE to help people?

What is being done to vaccinate people against flu?

Why are we not hearing what is being done?

When we hear a general story line without any specific details such as 'The HSE are fully prepared and ready for an influx of Swine Flu case', what we're really hearing is a statement which is meant to lull us into a state of false confidence while behind the scenes senior HSE management can't agree on what to do, let alone actually implement something to help the population.

The UK is takign action and ordered drugs to vaccinate the entire population through GP's. That's 60 million people. We have a population of 4.5 and no such plan in place.

This is a disgrace and needs action right now.

Zebedee

They have no plan and are asking GPs to treat 'Swine Flu' and not even register it. They are not counting the number of cases and the vacination they have will be out of date by the time it is needed.

The HSE and the WHO should make a public statement and get off their butts and start telling us all the true facts and what they are doing about this. It's no use telling us all that we are going to have an epidemic of swine flu - we want vaccinations to stop this now not when it's too late so HSE and WHO stop doodling and start treating befor it gets out of control.

Nobody has confidence in the HSE, the costs will be substantial but at least Dr Holohan seems to be on top of it at the moment.