Letters to the Editor: Heart and stroke patients have been forgotten

'I had wonderful treatment, it was like Star Trek treatment. I had been in MUH, CUH, and finally in St Oliver’s ward in St Finbarr’s Hospital. I spent 16 weeks in various hospitals, where I was treated with the utmost dignity, respect, and world-class treatment.' Picture: Larry Cummins

In December 14’s paper, health correspondent Niamh Griffin wrote of heart and stroke patients being forgotten. Sadly, I have to agree.

I collapsed one Halloween night with a brain haemorrhage. After I was found on the floor where I had been for over 10 hours, I was brought to the MUH where Dr Noel Fanning tried to coil me, but could not. I was then brought to CUH, where Mister George Kaar clipped the leak in my brain.

I had wonderful treatment, it was like Star Trek treatment. I had been in MUH, CUH, and finally in St Oliver’s ward in St Finbarr’s Hospital. I spent 16 weeks in various hospitals, where I was treated with the utmost dignity, respect, and world-class treatment.

In St Oliver’s, I learned to walk again with the help of nurses, doctors, and physiotherapists but I would have expected follow-ups.

Pat Kelly, Blackrock, Cork

Bethlehem is now a sombre place

As the war between Israel and Hamas rumbles on, with no end in sight, leaving thousands of Palestinians dead and nearly two million displaced and trapped in a humanitarian catastrophe, the celebration of Christmas will be a muted affair in the occupied West Bank.

In front of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity in the Palestinian West Bank, throngs of tourists and pilgrims who normally rub shoulders with costumed Santas and marching bands are absent this year. There are no festive lights strung overhead and no sign of the huge Christmas tree normally erected to celebrate the event. This year Christmas will be a muted affair in grieving Bethlehem. In a normal year, Bethlehem would be replete with tourists and pilgrims. Sustainable peace can be secured only after the formation of an independent Palestinian state, along the 1967 borders, and nothing less.

Gerry Coughlan, Kilnamanagh, Dublin 24

SF ‘should know better’ over Gaza

The sheer hypocrisy coming from Sinn Féin is breathtaking.

Yet few in the media challenge this hypocrisy.

While Mary Lou and others condemn Israel for their bombing of Gaza they should be reminded of their support, and background, of 30-plus years of bombing and killings that we endured on the islands of Ireland, UK and other European countries, no thanks to their armed wing and its offshoots.

To dictate to others what their obligations are under international law while purporting to support the Palestinian cause, they should know better than to advise others given their past history.

They then have the temerity and audacity to lecture others about indiscriminate bombing while at the same time eulogise and commemorate those who bombed and murdered innocent victims in 30 years of conflict.

I, like many others who witnessed or observed this unfolding conflict, don’t want to be lectured by those whose organisation gave succour and support to one of the deadliest terrorist organisations in modern-day history.

Maybe their close ties with Hamas in Gaza goes to prove that they haven’t really gone away and that the Armalite in one hand and gratuitous violence is better than meaningful long-lasting negotiation and dialogue.

Each time the mask slips we see the true face of those who seek power in our land.

Christy Galligan, Letterkenny, Co Donegal

Gaza a catalyst for reform at the UN

On December 17, at least 90 Palestinians were killed by Israeli air strikes on the Jabalia and Nuseirat refugee camps in Gaza. On the same day, two US air force aircraft were refuelled at Shannon Airport on their way from Camp Springs air base in Washington to the Middle East. They included a USAF C40 and a large USAF C17 Globemaster transport aircraft. Neither of these aircraft had any justifiable reason to refuel in a neutral country.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) is again scheduled to vote for a new resolution calling for a halt to the fighting in Gaza. The US is again likely to veto this resolution. The abuses of the UNSC veto by its permanent members, should mean that the UN General Assembly should have the powers to overrule the UNSC when important issues of international peace are at stake. The genocide that is taking place in Gaza at present should be the catalyst to insist on reform of the UN. The power of veto also gives these five permanent members a veto over any reform of their veto powers. This gives these five nuclear armed states a quintuple lock on UN reform. If they prevent reform, then the UN itself may need to be replaced and/or bypassed. If humanity is to avoid catastrophic wars then a comprehensive system of global jurisprudence is urgently needed to replace the flawed international system.

Our Government should be promoting reform of the UN. Instead, it plans to abandon the triple lock and join the abusers of the UN Charter.

Dr Edward Horgan, Castletroy, Limerick

Iran’s proxy wars

Morality aside, Gaza is not incomprehensible (Letters, December 18) but part of the (in)direct wars of the Iranian ayatollahs on “the West”. For Iran’s own medieval sectarian self-righteousness, it intends to destroy Israel so it aggravated conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours by arming and training Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Iran beefed up the Houthis in Yemen and sustained the Assad family in their Syrian fief’s civil war. If Iran gets rid of Israel, it fully intends to violently Islamise the US and EU.

One reason the US is supporting Israel in Gaza is to score against Iran for helping Russia in Ukraine, supporting China over Taiwan, and the Houthis’ campaign against Saudi and Egypt, by threatening the oil route through the Red Sea, besides the Straits of Hormuz at the exit of the Persian Gulf.

The October 7 attack was meant to frighten Israel to crumple it. The Israeli campaign, like the Allies in Europe from 1943-45 might be crude, but as with Lebanon in 2006, it will induce caution. Those preaching restraint at Israel forget that further Arab radicalisation is like a multiplier before an infinity sign. Israel has been radicalised by Arab rejections of two-state solutions and Arab violence: Fedayeen in the fifties, Hamas bus bombs wrecking Oslo, Intifada II, four Hamas Gaza campaigns before this one, and now the October violence of a type to signify there will be no “after the war”.

As for Gaza’s children: who has damned Hamas for killing and upsetting Israeli internal refugee children and others? Remember the Kindertransport made it possible to ignore the abandoned parents. Finally, casualty claims for Gaza do not balance with Hamas casualties and civilians.

Frank Adam, Prestwich, England

RTÉ loses public trust

2023 will be remembered as an annus horribilis for RTÉ and they only have themselves to blame. The state broadcaster has lost the trust of the Irish people. To regain trust, there needs to be a mass clear-out of RTÉ management across the organisation. Today the public is still being subjected to the Angelus by RTÉ. Has RTÉ management not yet heard of the concept of church and state separation? The continued broadcasting of the Angelus is the true indicator of whether there has been any meaningful change at RTÉ.

The longer it is broadcast, the more the Irish public knows that the state broadcaster is still being run by the same old faces with the same tired old ideas and outdated ideology.

Derek O’Flynn, Carrigaline, Cork

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