Letters to the Editor: At-risk children still waiting for vaccinations

Why are we still waiting for our very high-risk children, aged 12-15 years, in cohort four to be vaccinated asks the mother of boy with complex medical needs and severe/profound intellectual disability?

Why are we still waiting for our very high-risk children, aged 12-15 years, in cohort four to be vaccinated?

The European Medicines Agency and Food and Drug Administration in the US has approved vaccines for this age group in the EU, UK, and Canada. We are in the EU, so why the delay?

My son Jack has been cocooning since March 2020. He has complex medical needs and severe/profound intellectual disability. He requires 24-hour care. He is immunosuppressed and receives a weekly immunoglobulin infusion for his immunity.

I really want him fully vaccinated as soon as possible. I want him to be able to return to school safely in September. School is his only outlet. His school friends are his only friends. He adores his teacher and his special needs assistants. He loves going on the school bus with his friends.

He has been at home with me for 16 long months, punctuated by sickness, hospital stays and medical appointments. Such is his life.

If someone from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee is reading this, prioritise our vulnerable children. As mum and carer to a child like Jack, I fought hard to get carers vaccinated, but our pleas fell on deaf ears. Please hear my plea this time for my son and for all those in cohort four in the 12-15 age group.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has recommended that ALL priority groups be vaccinated as soon as possible in light of the Delta variant. Time is of the essence. We have lost so much. He has missed out on so much.

#VaccinationsSaveLives.

Aisling McNiffe

Ardclough

Co Kildare

Dublin city gaining violent reputation

I’ve been working every week since Covid started and I’ve seen all the different stages Dublin city centre has gone through. In March 2020, it was just me, the homeless and the gardaí. Then the weather improved and people came into the city on their evening walks.

Over the last few months, the city centre has become a kip. I know people needed to let off steam and that’s fine and I get it but, if it keeps going the way it’s going, many businesses will close.

Ordinary folk will stop coming in — they have already. Would you bring children into an atmosphere where a fight could break out in seconds and people are falling around the place out of their heads on drink and drugs?

Scenes earlier this month in Temple Bar, Dublin, when gardaí patrolled the city centre as public order incidents escalated. Picture: Leon Farrell/Rollingnews.ie

The whole idea of having pubs and clubs is that there is control, there are bouncers and bar staff to tell you you have had enough. At the moment, there’s no one to tell anyone when they’ve had enough and it’s madness.

Stephen’s Green has to be closed down. It’s a free-for-all in there and one of these evenings a riot will kick off and people will be killed. I don’t want to be a spoilsport but, if it isn’t closed, you can forget about tourists.

Dublin city centre is being shown around the world as a very violent place — something it was never known for.

The takeaway pubs have to stop. They are giving drink to everybody and anybody. If you want a drink, you should have to consume it under observation of the premises you bought it from.

I saw three people, probably in their late 70s, coming up Dawson St on Tuesday night and they were scared out their minds. Those people will not be in again.

A city centre that was once renowned for been safe is losing that reputation very quickly. Somebody needs to bring Dublin back to what it should be.

David Hennessy

Dawson St

Dublin 2

Catholic ethos and maternity hospital

Dr Don O’Leary asks (Letters, June 28) why I am so certain that a Catholic ethos will not operate in the new national maternity hospital. I am certain mainly because medical consultants from the National Maternity Hospital have been saying so for some time. The latest statement from these consultants is published in a letter yesterday (June 28) in The Irish Times.

I quote from the consultants’ letter: “We want to reassure women and their families that all obstetric, neonatal and gynaecological care within Irish law is currently being provided at Holles Street, and will be provided in the new hospital. This will include terminations, tubal ligation, transgender and assisted reproduction services...

“A cast-iron guarantee in this regard is included in the proposed operating licence to be granted by the Department of Health for the new hospital, and we would not allow the project to proceed without this in place.”

Dr O Leary also refers to the role played by the Catholic Church in defeating Noel Browne’s mother and child scheme in 1951. It is of course true that the Church did oppose this scheme and I believe it was wrong to do so. However, many people believe that the trenchant opposition of the Irish Medical Association to Browne’s proposal was what largely decided this matter.

Professor William Reville

Waterfall

Co Cork

Two facilities could be the answer

Recently, we have had a lot of socialist screeching in the Dáil demanding that all State-funded hospitals be secularist in ownership and ethos.

May I suggest a simple solution to the issue based on fairness and the principle of Occam’s razor.

About 80% of Irish people are Catholic, at least in name. It seems logical, therefore, that Catholic mothers should have access to a Catholic maternity hospital.

On the other hand, about 10% of Irish people are secularists and demand access to a maternity hospital with a secularist ethos. Therefore, why not have two national maternity hospitals, one for Catholics and one for secularists.

The funding for such hospitals is irrelevant. Everyone pays in their taxes for all public hospitals, whatever their ethos.

James M Bourke

Terenure Road East

Dublin 6.

Find alternative site for new hospital

It’s time to close another sad chapter in Church/State relations and abandon all hopes of the location of a new national maternity hospital in the vicinity of St Vincent’s Hospital.

The Minister of Health should not humiliate himself or his office by going cap in hand in further deferential ‘negotiations’ with the Sisters of Charity and their hard-line Catholic advisers.

There is sufficient State-owned land near other suitable hospitals around Dublin to build a state-of-the-art national maternity hospital. The existing architectural plans drawn up for the St Vincent’s site can be quickly modified to start the construction work as a matter of urgency.

Brendan Butler

Malahide

Co Dublin

Fermoy town needs its bins back

The unenthusiastic attitude of Cork County Council on the provision of public litter bins was confirmed with the decision of Fermoy municipal district to refuse to restore litter bins removed last year following the Covid outbreak from the town of Fermoy.

This decision was justified on the grounds of maintaining social distancing, while simultaneously the same municipal district was spending over €21,000 to erect two public canopies and four picnic benches in the town to encourage social congregation.

While such behaviour is beyond comprehension, I am nevertheless confident from previous experiences that the new street furnishings will not be serviced with litter bins or cigarette receptacles, making a bad situation worse from a litter perspective.

Tadhg O’Donovan

Fermoy

Co Cork