I am writing to you in frustration regarding the HSE and being neglected over a life-threatening medical condition.
I was diagnosed with a perforated bowel in October 2021 and was told I need surgery, and yet I still wait for it. I did have an operation in February 2021 due to perforated bowel and was given a colostomy bag. Soon after the surgery, I had yet another perforated bowel, but due to the surgery and the fresh scar, the abscess was able to come out, and now I wear two colostomy bags. One is where the abscess can go into, and I have been wearing it for the last two and half years with zero treatment.
I have had several meaningless appointments and the same repetitive test but no dates for surgery.
Every day I am in pain, and I spend a lot of my time in bed or finding it hard to move because of the pain. I have an abscess inside of me coming out for the past two and half years due to the perforation, which is burning my skin and making everyday life very uncomfortable.
This has greatly affected my life and my mental health as well. I did take up employment back in 2021 as a recruitment consultant because I did not want to be sitting waiting around. I have had the same procedure repeatedly which led to the same old story that they will make a new appointment and organise a date for my surgery, but we are two and half years, going on three soon, since my bowel has perforated, and I am nowhere near close to surgery.
I am afraid that if something is not done soon it can affect me going into surgery where I might not be able to get a reversal or even worse, that severe damage could be done to my insides which could cause complications during my surgery.
I am unable to work anymore and I have handed in my resignation to concentrate on my health. I went to A&E on July 4, as requested by my GP who wrote me a letter to be admitted because the pain had become worse,
I was then sent home after a few hours when the A&E doctor told me I did not have a perforated bowel, which contradicts all of the tests that I had to suffer through for the past two and half years.
To be told this after just one X-ray, I believe this diagnosis is false because this is my third perforation on my bowel. Regardless of what I told them they didn’t really care inside the A&E and told me the consultant will look after me in August.
I have not seen or heard from my consultants team since December 2022, where I had to ring them several times to ask when was my next appointment.
If I am seen in August, it will eight to nine months since I was I seen by anyone in the surgical team. Regardless the amount of times I have contacted their secretary highlighting my pain and the burning I am getting from the abscesses and wondering when I will be seeing. If I did not make contact, I would be forgotten again.
I would not be writing this email if I had faith in the HSE, but after nearly three years of this I have lost total faith in the doctors, the HSE, and this country.
Shane
Youghal
Co Cork
Hailing work of Irish nurses in the UK
In the notices of the 75th birthday of the British National Health Service (NHS) and its use of Irish nurses, one group seems to be missed. This would include the present Mrs Hyland (of 60 years, later this year).
As a young Irish girl who did not have the advantage of secondary education, she could not gain entry to the profession in Ireland.
She answered an advertisement from Beckenham in the UK. Three years later, she was an SRN and her last posting was as manager of a luxury nursing home for the elderly — an offshoot of one of the upper layer of luxury hotels.
What Ireland missed was my good fortune.
Cal Hyland
Rosscarbery
Cork
Going cashless not always the way
I feel compelled to respond to the article regarding Kaleidoscope festival going cashless this year.
As an attendee, I noted the Tappy wristband system worked well 90% of the time.
However, I spoke to multiple vendors who had connection issues and could not put sales through via their card machine.
When I returned home from the festival, I noticed a sale for a T-shirt my child had purchased had not gone through at all via Tappy .
If only vendors had been allowed to accept cash they would not have had any failed transactions at all. But according to Brian McDermott, co-founder and director of Fuel, a company that co-owns Kaleidoscope, if you express your opinion online regarding how you would like to spend your own hard-earned money at one of his festivals, then you are nothing but a troll, a keyboard warrior, and not a regular festival attendee at all.
I must be an anomaly then, Mr McDermott.
Megan O’Brien
Galway
State’s attitude to carers is shocking
I have just read the story of Lynsey O’Donovan and her son Jack (irishexaminer.com, July 9). This is heartbreaking to read.
I myself have a benign form of MS, and it terrifies me that I and my family could end up in same boat.
Is it really beyond the capabilities of those in authority to realise that giving the necessary help will have a domino effect?
Proper home care means less hospital beds being taken up, except in an emergency, and more rest for families.
I will never understand the Government’s attitude to carers.
Maggie Harding
Gorey
Wexford
Give Marty a break
Marty Morrissey; GAA, boxing, light entertainment and all points in between. It doesn’t take an actuary to work out that that fella works every hour God sends. He must really love his job. And he is very good at it.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Which of us is perfect?
Marty Morrissey deserves a break. Even allowing for the car, we probably still owe that fella money.
RTÉ. Just get to the end. Trust us. We want this finished too.
Indignation and Vindictiveness. Neither a hurling county....
Michael Deasy
Bandon
Cork
Total clearout if we are ever to trust RTÉ
Listening to revelation after revelation, the flip flopping of evidence presented (apologies for the use of this pun) to the different Oireachtas Committees shows an executive and board more in tune with providing entertainment and a good time to its commercial partners, while the the ordinary populus are left holding the proverbial can with cheap repeats.
Dee Forbes guaranteeing Ryan Tubridy that he wouldn’t be subject to a pay cut while staff were told there was nothing in the kitty, makes my blood boil.
Between 2012, while we were going through the harshest of measures after the financial crash of 2008, to 2022, €1.6m passed through RTÉs barter account(s).
The list of goodies bought for clients as well as providing managers and executives with freebies, at licence fee payers expense, is staggering.
Some €13,730 for Ed Sheeran tickets, €12,000 for Bruce Springsteen tickets, Robbie William and Phil Collins tickets costing €6,350, €4,200 paid to the Soho House Club in London, and €4,956 for flip flops, and lets not forget the cost of going to large sporting events both home and abroad, shows a broadcasting service run by the elite for the elite.
With over 100 top earners in RTÉ earning between, the exorbitant and wholly unjustified, €515,000 and €117,000, it’s no wonder the broadcasting service was in debt.
While some in the executive, who are getting closer to the exit door, try and justify all of this squandered and hidden money the facts are RTÉ was a public organisation who hadn’t been put under the microscope for lack of proper oversight or regulation and hoped it never would.
The sheer dishonesty and deceit, not only on lower paid staff in RTÉ but on the public at large, is breathtaking.
Nothing less but a total clearout is required if we are ever to have confidence in senior managers, executives or the board of RTÉ.
Christy Galligan
Letterkenny
Co Donegal
Toothless grilling
Regarding the RTÉ grilling at Oireachtas committees: At least now we know one thing, members of the Oireachtas Media Committee couldn’t hit a bull in the butt with a bass fiddle if they spent another year trying.
Enough, it’s embarrassing.
Jim O’Sullivan
Rathedmond
Sligo
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