Maurice Gueret
Ireland’s best health columnist
Budget day
An old practice of awarding myself a few hours off on budget day has not been abandoned. With the benefit of growing wisdom, no longer do I spoil the interlude by tuning into long-winded speeches from Leinster House. These days, most of the scrawny rabbits in the hat are leaked in advance. This year, a good pal and I spent a glorious few hours tracking down the grave in Glasnevin cemetery of the invincible Skin the Goat, who I wrote about last week. I caught up with the small print of Pascal’s goat-skinning later. Petrol and fags were going up, and children under six were going to the toothpuller for free. Now I am no dental expert, but something tells me that the pink gums and baby gnashers of newborns, toddlers and pre-schoolers aren’t in dire need of cuttingedge dental technology. Or filling, for that matter. Fianna Fail spent budget day talking about black holes. For the most part, these won’t be found in the generation that has been awarded free sweeties at the dentist. The most interesting statistic from the Budget is that 62pc of state spending now goes on Health and Social Protection. Our love affair with giveaway politicians is surely responsible for the fact that we get poorest value and less targeted spending than any nation on Earth.
Intelligent Ulick
I was sad to hear of the passing of Ulick O’Connor, pictured above right. Long before Monty Python invented a clinic where you could pay for a boisterous argument, Ireland had Ulick to provide the same service. Forty years ago, the union at my old school commissioned a lovely sculpture of birds in flight. It was named after a recently deceased past pupil, and was to inaugurate a new annual debating competition between past pupils and current ones. RTE newsreader Maurice O’Doherty chaired the first annual debate on whether teenagers ever had it so good. Ulick was star performer of the past-pupil team, and opposed the motion. I was on the student team, and was greatly assisted by prior coaching at Dr Steevens Hospital. My grandfather had been a lifelong student of debating technique. But he had suffered one of many dislocations of a weak hip, so I was summoned to his hospital bedside for tuition. He told me about the absolute importance of the opening lines, the exordium of the speech. “It’s the only part that most of an audience will remember,” he told me. He lent me an opening line to butter up the audience. So on the night, I looked out at the congregation and bellowed: “You are all intelligent people”. Then, glancing towards Ulick and his team, I clarified things for comic effect. “Well, most of you are intelligent people.” Cue claps and laughs. The rest of the oration is long forgotten. But Ulick and his gang enjoyed the jibe and its delivery. I went home with the new trophy as best speaker on the night. And Ulick had a friend and admirer for life.
Bones & sawbones
The dictionary folks at MerriamWebster send my phone an interesting word each day, and tell me about its origins and uses. Last week, I wrote here about Dr ‘Bones’ McCoy of Star Trek. By chance, a few days later, their word of the day was ‘sawbones’, which explains where McCoy received his abbreviated nickname. The word ‘sawbones’ took off more in America than in these parts. It was adopted there as a slang word for a doctor, especially a surgeon. Mark Twain was a particular fan. But its first use was by Charles Dickens in his 1837 novel, The Pickwick
Papers. Cockney servant Sam Weller is surprised that his eponymous master wasn’t aware that a sawbones was a surgeon. In those days, speedy limb amputation was a vital part of a doctor’s repertoire if the patient was to survive and pay the bill.
Late surgeon
Speaking of Sawbones and old Dr Steevens, one of its celebrated plastic surgeons, Seamus O Riain, passed away last month. He was the son of Ireland’s very first minister for health, Dr James Ryan. Both of his parents had been jailed for involvement in Republican activities.
Mr O Riain was consultant to many Dublin hospitals and a major interest of his was cleft lip and palate surgery. In fact, cleft lips had been operated on in Dr Steevens as far back as the year 1800, when Abraham Colles repaired them with silver pins, screws and figure-of-eight suturing. Hand and arm operations were also part of Mr O Riain’s repertoire. He had great expertise in nerve function and once successfully re-implanted an amputated forearm. It was still working well 20 years later.