Dr Garrett FitzGerald feels a wave of nostalgia for the good old days. He feels particularly keenly for the plight of that well-known economic barometer, the used-car salesman. It’s hard to believe that the good old days are ending. Some of my friends in the car business are taking tablets for the ‘downturn’. Not only [...]
Dr Mick Molloy writes that a system for admitting patients and spreading them across the hospital is a possible solution to ED overcrowding. Much has been written about overcrowding in Irish hospitals. There have been disputes about the figures, the INO trolley watch figures being consistently higher than HSE figures for the same hospitals. What [...]
Dr Paul Heslin writes that this country’s senseless, inefficient systems must change if we are ever to have a health service of which we can be proud. Mary Harney was right, you know. Now, that is a controversial statement these days. But she was. Mary was right. She was right on the button when she [...]
Terence Cosgrave says that there have been many spurious and self-serving arguments in the health arena, which only distract from achieving the real and measurable improvements that could be made. Very few things are completely right or wrong. Life has more shades of grey than black or white. Last week, in this space, I criticised [...]
Terence Cosgrave spoke to Prof David McConnell on the history of genetics at Trinity College last week. The Department of Genetics is celebrating a half-century of existence and going from strength to strength. You can sum up the last fifty years of genetics in Trinity with one word” Professor David McConnell told the packed auditorium [...]
The scenes might have been scripted in Hollywood. It’s rural France, it’s July, it’s 2007. In the dead of the night, a shadowy group of dissident wine producers take a TV journalist to a remote location to witness a video message being made. In the video, seven wine makers, their faces hidden by black balaclavas, [...]
Currently, where a person is considered incapable of managing his affairs, an application to court can be made to make that person a ward of court. On 15 September 2008, the Government approved proposals for a Mental Capacity Bill (Bill). The purpose of the Bill is to replace the wards of court system, in so [...]
A pall of gloom hangs over the hospital at the moment. Despair stalks the staff canteen. Talk of share prices dominates the back-door conversation of the hospital’s dwindling smoking clientele. People who previously didn’t know the difference between an investment bank and a piggy bank are talking freely of Lehman Brothers, Freddie Mac and even [...]
Dear Sir, Congratulations to Dr John Ball, Dr Shane McKeogh and the ICGP on the first National Conference for Establishing General Practitioners and on the publication of Signposts to Success — a Handbook for the Establishing General Practitioner. Both, I feel, are landmarks in Irish general practice. Much credit is due to the ICGP for [...]
Gary Culliton reports on the findings of the Commission on Patient Safety and Quality, which advocates openness and learning from mistakes as key objectives for the future. A strong, positive culture of patient safety in Ireland, which would ensure effective governance and accountability as well as patient participation in healthcare decision-making at all levels, is [...]
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