The republic is pointing the way to solving the health care crisis throughout the island

  Here I join Mick in commending Newton Emerson for  giving a new twist to a familiar theme.   He describes a linkage between a  religious  ethos north and south and a lack of resources not due to funding alone, that stands in the way of  providing a better health service. In the republic a partial solution has been reached for transferring the National Maternity Hospital to a new 300m euro building on the St Vincent’s Hospital campus. The governing …

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The Lady with the Lamp

She is a ‘ministering angel’ without any exaggeration in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow’s face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired for the night and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds. —The Times On this day in 1820, a …

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NI health minister: will someone think of the service?

The DUP seem to have had a bit of a problem with Health Ministers. Despite health and personal social services being the largest department by spending, it is actually unlikely that they wanted it. It is unlikely anyone wanted the ministry and it was the penultimate one chosen. At some level the DUP can be given credit that they did not take Higher Education and leave Alliance with the baby but the number of recesses etc. which were held during …

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Bloody foreigners coming over here and taking our medicines

Last night, during the party leader’s debate on TV, Nigel Farage was told that he should be ashamed of himself when he sort of said that people with HIV/AIDS come to the UK to get free treatment. But, of course, that’s just a part of his party’s xenophobic, keep the others out message. Firstly, his figures aren’t quite accurate. Secondly, the ‘foreigners’ refers to people born abroad. It’s not clear how long these people have been in the UK; and …

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