Nurses are worth a pay rise... unlike politicians!
THE nurses’ pay demand makes headlines and the Mail’s article (yesterday) says the overcrowded A&E will be plunged into chaos. It does not take a nurses’ strike to plunge the A&E into chaos. It has been in chaos for years.
This has nothing to do with the nurses, who are overworked and underpaid. It is the pen-pushers and Government ministers who are responsible for the mess of the health service. If they were paid a decent wage you would not hear of nurses leaving in their droves to work in other countries where they can earn a living wage.
Nurses work very hard for a miserable wage and all hell breaks loose when they want a rise. There is nobody to stop ministers taking a rise when ever they feel like one and it happens regularly.
Nurses earn their money where ministers do not. Put ministers in a hospital to work for a day and they would not last five minutes.
DAVID BURKE, Gorey, Co. Wexford.
My cancer story
I WOULD like to ask you if I may put on record the experience I had with prostate cancer as it may help others.
Once any male person experiences difficulty in urinating, especially those 50 years of age and over, the first thing he must do is make an appointment with his GP and ask to have PSA test (Prostate Specific Antigen), this being a simple blood test. You should get the result within a week. I believe early diagnosis is the secret of beating most cancers.
In my case in early 2008 I was given the heart-stopping news that I had prostate cancer stage six. In my immediate ignorance, I may add, I thought this six was six out of ten. My face showed I was deeply alarmed.
The surgeon then asked me if I was worried and I replied that I was not overjoyed at this news.
He then said to me: ‘Mr Stephenson there are thousands of people in Ireland running about who have ten times or more what you have and do not even know about it.’ That was ten years ago so the lesson of this story is if you fit the above criteria of poor urination then go to see a doctor. HARRY STEPHENSON,
Bangor, Co. Down.
Simon’s Brexit mess
SO Simon Coveney has now eventually come to the conclusion that a no-deal Brexit is looming. But he stopped short of declaring that Leo Varadkar’s and his own meddling in the UK/EU negotiations and their remarks in the past regarding Britain’s handling of the Brexit talks – which aggravated the Brexiteers – are partly to blame for a no-deal Brexit.
The consequences of which will jeopardise our multi-billion trading with Britain.
Granted, they had to voice their concern. If they had not interfered with such intensity, matters probably would have worked out better and without a hard border. JAMES B. O’BRIEN,
Co. Donegal.
One man’s terrorist...
DR Umar Al-Qadri has said ‘naturalised Irish citizens who travel abroad to take part in conflict should have their citizenship revoked’. This suggestion is understandable but it puts the onus on the Irish State to remove their citizenship.
It also singles out one particular group who choose to take a particular side in these conflicts while ignoring many others including Irish citizens who go abroad to fight in these same conflicts but choose to fight on the other side.
We in Ireland should be especially conscious of the blurred distinction between terrorists and freedom fighters. Do we treat a person with a name like Seán Ó Murchú fighting with the Kurdish separatist group in Syria different from a person with a Muslim name fighting for Isis? Do we ignore Irish citizens who leave Ireland and join the British, French or US armies?
Why is it considered acceptable for some Irish citizens to kill other humans in wars that are very often unjustified but not OK for other Irish citizens to do likewise?
The solution may well be to make a radical change in the Irish Constitution whereby after a specified date any Irish citizen who joins any foreign army or armed militia group would automatically lose their Irish citizenship.
If this were enacted then the revoking of their Irish citizenship would be implemented by the person themselves on their joining a foreign army or militia. It would also have the beneficial results of preventing neutral Irish citizens from unjustified killing of our fellow humans.
This prohibition should also apply to Irish citizens joining any Nato or European Union army. The only exceptions should be genuine United Nations peacekeeping.
EDWARD HORGAN, Castletroy, Co. Limerick.
Send Harris packing
BRENDA Power writes about the nonsense of changing the name of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda (Mail, yesterday)
Wouldn’t it make more sense to change the name of the Minister for Health and send all patients to Lourdes?
This would clear the ‘waiting lists’ for everything and get rid of Simon Harris and his verbal diarrhoea! Solved! PHYL KENNEDY-BRUEN,
Galway city.