An old colleague used to come out with a wonderful Fermanagh saying: “A bit of manners is easy carried.” An old-fashioned notion, perhaps, but he liked to treat people with dignity and friendly respect.

Which is exactly what I was accorded by our wonderful NHS staff over recent months when I had reason to avail of a number of hospital appointments. (Sorry to disappoint my critics, but I’m OK.) But in view of what’s about to come in the rest of this week’s column, I think it’s important to put on record my very positive experiences at the hands of all staff levels of the health service. Three different consultants couldn’t have been more polite and communicative, as well as efficient and expertly professional.

And the same applied to all the nurses, administrative and ancilliary staff, porters and all. Lovely people.

Of course in the health service there are staff who let the side down, but the vast majority are superb.

I’ve always said that the problems with our NHS lie elsewhere, mostly at the top of a bureaucratic nonsense, and indeed the system itself.

Not that we should let some doctors off the hook.

I’ve been reading this week about two of them, and I think there are serious public interest questions to be answered about Dr. Robert Taylor and Dr. Heather Steen.

Both were named in the recent damning report by Mr Justice John O’Hara’s hyponatraemia inquiry into the deaths of five children in Northern Ireland hospitals. Dr. Taylor was the anaesthetist in the case of little Adam Strain, and the inquiry revealed that Dr. Taylor made fatal errors in Adam’s treatment, which Mr. O’Hara said “defied understanding.”

Worse still, Mr. O’Hara reported: “I heard a lot of evidence from Dr. Taylor but do not believe I was told the full story.” After years of inquiry, Adam’s mum still doesn’t know exactly what went on in the operating theatre which resulted in her little boy’s death. That’s shameful.

We still await to hear if any of the doctors named by Mr. O’Hara will be held to account.

While we wait, we now learn through the work of a journalist that Dr. Taylor is actually receiving huge sums of EXTRA money from the taxpayer for his work. Since 2001, he has received a “meritorious service award” of almost £32,000 every year. Effectively, a bonus which amounts to more than half a million pounds on top of his NHS salary.

Another doctor named in the Belfast Telegraph report by Lisa Smyth is Dr. Heather Steen, who was involved in the treatment of Claire Roberts, whose death was avoidable according to Mr. Justice O’Hara.

He said he was “persuaded that a cover-up was attempted by Dr. Steen.”

We now learn that Dr. Steen is another doctor on a bonus for her sterling work, nearly £9,000 every year until retirement. Again, on top of her salary.

I am full of admiration for the dignity of Claire’s parents, Alan and Jennifer who have fought valiantly and still continue their efforts after all these years to get justice for Claire. One can only imagine the grief and hurt that they and the other families have gone through.

You may recall that the findings of the O’Hara inquiry were shocking enough and indictment of the system, and we should all be behind calls by, for example, the Roberts family for action to be taken against the doctors responsible.

The response by the Department of Health has been poor so far, to say the least. We have no Health Minister at the minute, and anyway where is the outcry from politicians who are quick enough on to the airwaves about the most trivial of matters; but we do have high-ranking officials making mealy-mouthed platitudes.

But they should know that this is not going to go away. A new inquest has opened into Claire’s death, the police are revisiting this and there are a number of very principled and brave journalists who are continuing to highlight the issues, along with the very determined families.

We do not know the contractual arrangements of Doctors Taylor and Steen. But we do know who foots the bill for their gravy train – you and me dear taxpayer, so we deserve some answers to two questions.

What is being done to hold them account? And should they get paid so much, for apparently being so good at their jobs.

As I said earlier, I’ve been (mostly) fortunate in my treatment at the hands of consultants and think they’re well worth a proper salary. But I begrudge Taylor and Steen this “bonus”.

An open and honest system, I don’t think so.

There is, of course, another issue. In times of austerity, when we constantly hear of financial constraints, there appears to be no difficulty in finding these exorbitant sums. Yet cuts bite deeply at lower levels of the health service.

Nurses who have to do so many tasks and work long hours are worth far more in my opinion. And yet, at a recent Royal College of Nursing conference in Belfast it was revealed that chronic staff shortages are hampering the care they can give.

Nursing staff are being forced to choose between completing paperwork and treating patients. In a major report on nurse morale, the RCN says the profession is “on the brink.”

It’s 70 years this year since the NHS was founded and throughout those decades many families, including my own, have benefitted from a wonderful service in many positive ways. But we all recognise that the health service faces a real challenge in funding and how it does its job for the benefit of us all.

There’s something fundamentally wrong here; and it’s not the dedication and vocation of the fantastic staff at the coalface.

No doubt the mandarins at the top will again close their ears and fail to listen; what a disgrace that is, and we should not and must not let them get away with it.