CIE and sausages
The new board of the HSE is brimming with the cream of Irish corporate talent, writes Maurice Gueret, but can they make homes for nurses affordable?
Maiden Voyage
There’s a quantity surveyor on the new HSE board. My late father would be pleased. He once wore the QS’s gold chain of high office. Next time we are fobbed off with tales of extra cable when a hospital build goes half-a-billion over budget, there will be a wellmeasured expert on hand to see through it. The HSE’s QS will be in good company. There’s a qualified bank director; a professor of law; a primary school principal who was president of the GAA; a stockbroker who is chair of CIE; a scientific communicator; and the vice-president of a company that makes Cheestrings, LowLow and Denny’s sausages. And there is a household name, too. It’s Fergus Finlay. I’ll refrain from a passing commentary about the complete absence of nurses, doctors, or anyone else on the health frontline. Medics who wore the more important boots of Minister for Health, and there have been four of them in my career, didn’t exactly smother themselves in glory. I’ll simply salute the motley talents on the bridge of the new HSE, and wish them well. Just as the harbourmaster at Cobh waved the RMS Titanic off on her maiden voyage.
Nurses’ Homes
There are few winners when our nurses go on strike. They down tools with great reluctance, for in truth, most cannot afford to be docked pay or lose increments for very long. One of their representatives made a very succinct summary of their plight, and I will bring it to you here. The average house price in Dublin is €370,000. The average nurse earns €36,000 with allowances. The maximum mortgage allowable by the Central Bank on that salary would be €126,000. Which basically means it would take three nurses to purchase just one average house. If they do purchase one, they will spend the next 30 years paying the highest mortgage rates in the EU, with nowt to spare when bills are paid. Like so many discontents in Ireland, the plight of nurses is not really a health issue. It’s a property issue. An issue that arises in countries where politicians are strapped firmly to the backs of moneylenders, middle-men and the entire building industry.
Tai chi GP
One of the positives that emanated from the Thalidomide tragedy was the foundation of The Patients Association in the UK. It was set up by a teacher in 1963, and has been a powerful body for change. It regularly surveys the opinions of real patients who use health services, and last month, it published a great report on what patients think of their GP’s premises. Forty per cent of those surveyed felt theirs was a poor environment that made them feel anxious or stressed. Worries about confidentiality were to the fore. Not so much when in with the doctor, but poor privacy at the reception area, where being overheard seems to be the norm. I was interested to see that fewer than 20pc of surgeries offered Wi-Fi to waiting patients, though patients were divided fairly equally about whether they wanted it. There was some support for a digital type of check-in like you have at the airport, without having to share intimate details about the recent behaviour of your piles with the receptionist. There was plenty of room in the survey for suggestions on what GPs might do to improve things. A coffee shop would be welcome, as would tai chi classes, an on-site gymnasium, 24-hour time slots and a perfume-free policy for all users and staff. Dream on!
Longford Ladies
Any doctor that does all those things probably deserves a plaque. And my search for medical memorials gathered pace recently, when a Longford reader told me that I need to get out of the Pale more often. She tells me that two lady doctors have been honoured by plaques in recent years by the County Longford Historical Society. Dr Victorine Yorke-Pettit (18991987) had a large practice and was also medical officer of the Infirmary at the County Home. Kindness and sincerity were her hallmarks, and she also received Longford Person of the Year award after her retirement. Dr Mary Farrell (1892-1973) was also honoured with a memorial. She was a very rare woman in the UCD graduation class of 1916, and received an honours degree. In 1918, she tended to the warwounded in England, and also ran immunisation clinics in West Africa in the 1920s. Longford residents knew her best as the longest-serving resident of the Dispensary House, where she practised from 1930.