Terence Cosgrave writes that A Vision for Change is still an aspiration and very little is being done to implement it. I suppose it’s a common complaint that many people working within the health service — or stakeholders who take an interest in it — can often get frustrated at the lack of will that [...]
Paul Murray of the Hospice Foundation of Ireland writes that a new forum will examine attitudes to end of life in Ireland. What are the main issues at end of life in Ireland? This is the question being posed to doctors of all types by the Forum on End of Life, which is being run [...]
Dear Editor, About fifteen years back, I as a trainee in the Irish psychiatric system wrote a letter to Irish Medical Times about the need for a separate college of psychiatry. The other day, the news came to me as a pleasant surprise that finally my dream has come true. This is a commendable step, [...]
A care programme that has been implemented at a Michigan hospital is helping to develop communications between patients and healthcare staff and improve care levels Nurses working at a US hospital in Michigan are working to improve patient relationships by taking a back-to-basics approach to healthcare. Instead of standing and towering over patients, nurses at [...]
Dear Editor, [Dr] Fenton Howell’s letter, ‘St Vincent’s to be commended’ [January 16, www.imt.ie/opinion/2009/01/st_vincents_to_be_commended.html], requires comment. This letter relates to the imposition of a total ban on smoking within the confines of the grounds of St Vincent’s from January 1 and a ban at Blanchardstown Hospital from May 31. He states that smoking kills 6,000 [...]
Ann Brizzell of Beauchamps Solicitors writes that under the terms of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, employers are obliged to provide a safe working environment for staff. Every employer has a responsibility to provide a safe environment for their employees. The HSE Employers Agency recognises this and introduced the ‘Dignity at [...]
My first few days in Vienna – I am here until the end of February – have me steeped in thoughts of language, expression and identity. While celebrating New Year’s Eve on the streets in sub-zero temperatures, I told a girl that it was so cold that my bones were starting to freeze. I said [...]
Dan Danaher speaks to Kilkee-based GP Dr Tom Nolan about his opposition to the centralisation of acute care services in the mid-west region. The use of a population area with about 350,000 people to justify the centralisation of acute care at Limerick’s Mid-Western Regional Hospital is ‘flawed’, a Kilkee-based general practitioner has claimed. Opposing the [...]
Dr Paul Stewart writes on the importance of food as medicine and he highlights an awards scheme for doctors and for medical students with an interest in nutrition. Food, the first generic drug, is also sometimes the first drug of choice for patients — if not for doctors seeing patients — with the brand varying [...]
Dr Mark Hannon writes that the Government needs to encourage citizens to ‘spend’ Ireland out of recession, and not penalise the middle classes at every opportunity When the general public first became aware that all was not well with the so-called ‘Celtic Tiger’, the word ‘recession’ was never mentioned. Rather, a number of euphemistic phrases [...]
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