Terence Cosgrave takes stock of the events of 2009, and predicts another difficult year for the health service As we come to the end of 2009, most would agree that the year has not been one many of us will remember with fondness or warmth. The revelations of child abuse in State institutions in the [...]
With the UK set to filter all blood destined for young children, Dara Gantly examines why the Irish Department of Health is not following suit The Department of Health still believes that a number of ‘significant issues’ need to be addressed before it can consider introducing a new blood filtration process for variant Creutzfeldt Jakob [...]
Four months after purchasing an iPhone, my level of connectedness with the world has probably increased a hundred-fold. I used to have a flivver of a phone – large and ugly and often semi-functioning – and no contract: I was pay-as-you-go. Telephoning was unthinkably expensive then, and texting more trouble (with a predictive text that [...]
Dear Editor, The headline in a recent edition of Irish Medical Times (December 4, 2009) of ‘Young GPs usually treat themselves’ should really have read ‘All doctors usually treat themselves’. And not only do they treat themselves, but they also treat their immediate family. Very few doctors or their families have a family doctor. And [...]
Dear Editor, I see the Department of Health is considering a hotline for Oirechtas members to follow their constituents’ medical card applications (Irish Medical Times, December 11 2009). With the HSE reversal to regional service, is this a covert strategy for the reconsitution of Health Boards, or the recognition that central governing divorced from local [...]
Ed Madden, BL, looks at a recent Northern Ireland High Court case in which the Court was asked to quash the publication of a guidance document on abortion On March 13, 2009 the Northern Ireland Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (“the Department”) published a document entitled Guidance on the Termination of Pregnancy: [...]
James Fullam and Dr Gerardine Doyle of UCD’s School of Business on how health literacy can ensure patient safety Health literacy is a concept defined as ‘the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions’ (Institute of Medicine, 2004). This [...]
Limerick GP Dr Darragh Little revisits a former college friend and Nobel Prize winner in his hidden lab in Connemara to discover the secret formula behind the mysterious gnosticum To win a Nobel Prize is the surreal dream of most scientists; to win two has been the outstanding achievement of Linus Pauling; but to win [...]
Niamh Mullen reports on new research from the US which has found that while embracing computers may improve quality scores, it does not necessarily cut the cost of running a hospital Computerising hospitals slightly improves quality but does not cut administrative or overall costs, a new study published in the American Journal of Medicine has [...]
Brian Herron examines why more and more Irish doctors are looking to Australia to enhance their careers Australia is currently undergoing what has been referred to in the Australian media as a “chronic doctor shortage” and increasingly foreign doctors, including Irish NCHDs, are being used to fill the gaps. “Irish doctors have often used a [...]
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