One of my single(ish) female friends, urging a (very) single male friend to try meeting a mate on the internet, told him: “Online dating isn’t just for losers anymore.” I think she’s probably right – the singles scene is complex these days, especially for thirty-somethings, since all of the hot people are gone. While online [...]
Mary Anne Kenny asks if emergency department overcrowding has fallen down the HSE’s priority list. Sickness is the world’s great leveller. All any patient wants is for a doctor to tell them what’s wrong and make them better. I saw this for myself recently, as I had cause to spend more time than I would [...]
Dear Editor, Despite the promises made by Health Minister Mary Harney when she set it up, the HSE has shifted from patient care to being budget driven. It is time to put the patient back at the centre of the health system in Ireland. The Labour Party has identified six key areas of organisational change [...]
Dear Editor, An article published in Irish Medical Journal April 2008, Vol 101, No 4, ( 116-118) may have conveyed the impression that the walk-in service for ophthalmic emergencies to the Accident and Emergency of the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital has been terminated. I wish to advise that this development has not taken [...]
Dear Editor, The Health Service Executive (HSE) and the National Council on Ageing and Older People and the Equality Authority should immediately withdraw their current series of offensive and inappropriate posters. The extraordinarily insensitive posters, part of the ‘Say No to Ageism in 2008’ campaign, depict a series of older people with ageist and offensive [...]
Dr Mark Hannon on the fact that although nursing home costs continue to spiral, fewer younger people are willing to care for their elderly relatives. Much as we hate to admit it, we are all getting older by the day. Sooner or later, the associated inevitable decline in physical and mental functions will affect us. [...]
Dr Mick Molloy on the importance of the result of the IMO specialist registrars’ vote on the consultants contract. It’s almost finished – after four years in the making, soon we will find out if consultants will vote to accept the new ‘contract’ on offer. ‘Contract’ is still in quotation marks as I have yet [...]
At the height of the Great Depression in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt became President of the United States and delivered an inaugural address that was one of the finest ever delivered – and certainly one of the best-known until John F. Kennedy’s in 1960. It is most famous for his phrase, “We have nothing to [...]
Dr Kevin Quinn, Chairman of the MICGP exam sub-committee and a GP on Arranmore Island says that though we have a good system of training GPs, we are not training enough of them. Ireland is fortunate to have a high quality system of specialist training for General Practice which is both recognised at home and [...]
In the first of two articles, Kealan Flynn outlines a number of important principles that should underpin the process of drawing up the new community pharmacy contract. The tendency of any military is always to fight the last war. The biggest danger for the community pharmacy sector is that it will allow the row over [...]
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