The impasse on hospital consultant contracts is the latest in a long line of stand-offs which have never been fully settled or satisfactorily resolved in this crucial zone of healthcare delivery. It is as seasonally dependable as the weather, with a mutually comfortable outcome remaining relentlessly and perennially elusive.
The claims being touted currently, that consultants are already fully and dutifully engaged in weekend shifts, foster a sense of wonderland reality to the fray. Anyone who has serious personal awareness of the prevailing patterns, knows full well that weekend consultant cover is on a sparse rota frequency and predominantly by phone-in advisory to a registrar. If that constitutes appropriate cover, the mind boggles. and we’re in Jabberwocky territory.
One senses a curious and challenging conundrum emerging for those top-medics on a galactic crest of financial favour... whether to appear or not to appear in person, or tend dutifully to an attractively demanding leisure programme. The 19th-hole gatherings for clinical review of the day’s proceedings could risk being compromised or, God forbid, cancelled.
Meanwhile, let the patients and hospital system sort themselves out at weekends. How charming is that?
Change comes dripping slow ... or never. Hippocrates, where are you?
Jim Cosgrove
Lismore
Co Waterford
Fund our forces for all-island security
It feels like our island nation is trapped in a Groundhog Day of endless discussions and inactions on how to address the decline of the Defence Forces by the shameful mismanagement of successive Irish governments who care so little about the safety of the Irish people and those who serve us in our military against an increasingly more lethal and unpredictable world.
Their deliberate policy of unpreparedness dressed up as neutrality while underfunding every element of national security will ultimately see the collapse of every unit in our Defence Forces. To save Óglaigh na hÉireann from this fate we need to elect a progressive government who will actually deliver while in office a cohesive all island defence strategy.
Peace making leaders and peacekeeping soldiers must be Ireland’s brand of neutrality that declare war on those who create poverty, death, and destruction by challenging those global war mongering countries and their armies of peace takers.
To make this vision a reality and address decades of defence neglect we need a substantial and immediate fund of approximately €2bn just for the necessary equipment which will sustain our island security for the next 20 years. This one-off sum must come from the 2023 windfall tax (prioritised with spend for health, housing, etc).
This funding would properly equip 11,500 full-time and 7,000 part-time troops within the existing two brigade’s formation as well as the future air force and navy (includes as examples; all island radar cover, eight jet trainers light strike and eight Saab JAS 39 jet interceptor aircraft with four Airbus C295 as transports and a multi-role vessel, etc).
To generate force numbers it is essential that we discontinue the “single force” concept where the reserve sub-units are permanently attached to army units as it has failed to attract recruits. We must return to better practice with paired infantry battalions and support units.
These improved operational capabilities within our regular and reserve units must lead to an increase in more diverse overseas missions with a good balance of humanitarian support and UN peacekeeping/enforcement activities.
Ultimately a life in the Defence Forces must offer a rewarding career with equal opportunities for travel, adventure, and development while delivering excellent pay, pension, and work conditions enabling us to attract and retain the best men and women from our nation.
Michael Hagan
Dunmurry
Co Antrim
Acting FAST to deal with stroke severity
Your health correspondent Niamh Griffin reported on the Irish Heart Foundation urging people who need it to get the clot busting drug and the urgency of getting early treatment — ‘ Less than 60% of stroke victims get to hospital in time for critical treatment’ (Irish Examiner, online, January 31).
Although while approximately 90% will be saved, what of the other 10%, who suffered a stroke but do not show the FAST signs (Facial weakness; Arm weakness; Speech problems; Time to call 112 or 999 for an ambulance if you spot any one of these signs).
There are two types of stroke an ischemic stroke and a brain haemorrhage stroke. I collapsed at home on October 31, just getting ready for bed. I had my trousers and shorts on but before I could put my pyjamas on, there was a blinding flash of light, and I felt that I had been struck on my head by a baseball bat. My first thought was a stroke, and knowing the urgency of FAST I tried to stand up to call someone but I collapsed on the floor. I lay there from 11.30pm until 10.30am the following day, when I was diagnosed with a brain haemorrhage. I saddens me that there is not enough knowledge of this sort of condition.
Pat Kelly
Marian park
Blackrock
End the bailout tax with €65bn surplus
The Government has called food retailers to task over rising food prices. Who’s going to call the Government to task, a government that announced a €65bn surplus yet continues to collect the universal social charge off the already hard pressed taxpayer? Is it not now time to end this bailout tax?
Brendan O’Shea
Listry
Killarney,
Unintended gaffe
Leo Varadkar seems to think the “unintended consequences” of which he speaks, do not apply to him — ‘Meeting with retailers a damp squib’ (Irish Examiner, May 11).
This fallacy probably comes from being doubly blessed with a golden spoon in your gob, and the gift of the gaffe, although one probably begat the other.
Liam Power
Dundalk
Co. Louth
Model of excellence
My condolences to the Clifford family on the death of Mrs Clifford RIP. I’ve been watching David Clifford since he scored four goals in the All-Ireland minor final a few years ago. He has consistently produced this exceptional high standard for club and county. He’s a role model for the young people on and off the field. I think he would be the ideal person to visit schools throughout Munster and give advice on growing up, as well as the dangers of drugs, alcohol and smoking. All we have to do is watch the flock of kids all heading towards him at the final whistle. I’m sure if the kids were told that David Clifford would be visiting their classroom the following day, there wouldn’t be many absent. School kids of today could well do with sound advice.
Dan Dineen
Ballylickey
Bantry
Pay up for inflation
If food prices and the cost of living can’t come down, then let’s ask the Government to demand an increase in our wages. I think that’s fair.
Eve Parnell
James Street
Dublin 8
Differences needed for true democracy
Democracy isn’t dependent on multi-party elections. If all the parties in an election share the same views and policies, then it isn’t democracy. Democracy means having a choice between two or more policy goals.
Parties and candidates should have the same means and opportunities to convey and express these policy goals to the electorate. If these conditions are not met, then it isn’t a fair election. It’s not democracy. Seeing many of the parties and candidates standing in many of Northern Ireland’s electoral wards, it’s more a case of having a choice between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
The perception management officials of establishment bodies don’t want us to think this way, but concepts of fairness and morality are difficult to engineer out of us.
Louis Shawcross
Hillsborough
Co Down
