Health – Page 11 – Slugger O'Toole

“constrained by outdated political dogma…”

Pete Baker on November 18, 2007, 8:05 pm

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Facinating development in the battle within the NI Executive. In today’s Sunday Life the Health Minister, the UUP’s Michael McGimpsey, continues his unusual campaign for public support in opposition to the Executive’s Draft Budget, while the Finance Minister contradicted that argument in front of the Assembly’s Health Committee. Meanwhile the chair of that committee, and the DUP’s spokeswoman on health [not to mention wife of the Finance Minister – Ed], Iris Robinson, penned a scathing attack on the Health Minister …

Time for opposition rethink on health?

Mick Fealty on November 12, 2007, 3:16 pm

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There’s been an understandable amount of outrage at the case of seven women who were misdiagnosed as being clear of cancer. But Stephen Collins in the Irish Times on Saturday argued that the opposition is doing the voters a disservice by obscuring the issue beyond the headlines. In fact in policy terms Harney and the Health Service Executive have been fighting a ferocious battle against an array of forces to try and close small and outdated cancer treatment centres to …

The role of the Opposition

Pete Baker on October 27, 2007, 1:19 am

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Whilst I had suggested, when noting the consultation on the draft allocation of resources, that It’s almost as if we, the public, are being tasked with the job of being the absent opposition to the Administration because our representatives in the Assembly can’t take on that role themselves. I didn’t expect to hear a member of the Northern Ireland Executive, albeit a member of the Ulster Unionist Party who will be discussing the issue this weekend, to openly call on …

Memo to the Health minister

Pete Baker on October 10, 2007, 10:51 pm

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The effectiveness of any “new and innovative treatments and medicines” should be proven to work beyond the placebo before being publicly funded. Otherwise it’s funding based on a super-natural belief. Health minister Michael McGimpsey attended a complementary and alternative therapies and medicines conference at Belfast City Hospital today. And he’s released a short statement. On which I have a few points to make, some of which I may have made before – see below the fold.From the Health minister’s statement …

“business as usual..”

Pete Baker on October 9, 2007, 6:39 pm

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In July the Northern Ireland Health minister, Michael McGimpsey, quietly told health service staff that he was reviewing the Review of Public Adminstration proposals to create a single Health Authority in place of the existing 4 Health Boards – legislation had been pencilled in for November this year. Today he’s announced that On considering proposed RPA structures, the Minister has confirmed that:- The current trust structures of five Health and Social Care Trusts and the Ambulance Service will remain largely …

Paisley to reassure importing countries on foot-and-mouth..

Pete Baker on August 7, 2007, 7:49 pm

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More than one farm site in Surrey, England, all within the initial 3km protection zone, are reported to be showing indications of foot-and-mouth. Officially Northern Ireland has escaped the EU export ban on meat and diary products from the UK.. unofficially some exporters have experienced problems. Not to worry, though. The BBC reports that the First Minister Ian Paisley is to have a quiet word with the Japanese ambassador to the UK.. *ahem* Even so, it’s not the only country …

Single HSSA proposal to be reviewed..

Pete Baker on July 6, 2007, 6:26 pm

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The BBC’s Dot Kirby is reporting that, in a memo, the Health Minister Michael McGimpsey has told NHS staff that the RPA proposal for a single regional Health and Social Services Authority, expected to replace the 4 existing Boards in April 2008, is to be reviewed – a Chief Executive Designate has already been appointed and legislation was due in November this year. Perhaps the Health Minister will eventually get around to making an official statement on the matter.. and …

“and in light of the other budgetary pressures facing the Executive”

Pete Baker on May 30, 2007, 5:28 pm

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The BBC report that Finance Minister Peter Robinson has criticised members of the NI Executive who voted in favour of the Alliance party’s amendment yesterday, and he says those that did broke the ministerial code as the executive had unanimously agreed not to vote for high-spending measures unless all ministers supported them. However, as observer correctly pointed out in the comments zone here last night, the Assembly actually passed the UUP amendment to the motion, after voting on the Alliance …

Assembly votes for free personal care for elderly in 2008-9..

Pete Baker on May 29, 2007, 6:32 pm

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This is an interesting one for several reasons, one of which I hinted at previously. The Assembly has voted, by one vote, in favour of an Alliance party amendment to a SDLP motion which called for free personal care for the elderly to be provided for in the 2008-2009 budget and onwards. But, and it’s a big but, only after the Alliance party demanded a recorded vote – the deputy speaker, the UUP’s David McClarty, had initially ruled that the …

The other side of the consultant’s coin…

Mick Fealty on May 21, 2007, 12:44 pm

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The Bitter Pill is written, so we are told, by a junior doctor in the Republic’s Health Service (H/T Cian’s blog round up). S/he takes the IMO’s recent objections to Mary Harney’s proposed contract to task, one by one. The crunchiest point is probably number 2: In Ireland we should be looking to move towards a comprehensive, round the clock health service. Consultants have no right to complain about a shift system or being asked to work weekends. A forty …

Health strikes: Too many cooks, not enough broth?

Mick Fealty on April 12, 2007, 2:20 pm

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The Republic’s health service is currently being convulsed by work to rule and threats of limited strike action by the Irish Nurse’s Organisation. But Marc Coleman, in today’s Irish Times, notes that the issue they are most vocal about is not the underlying cause of a bona fide grievance.In fact, he argues, that in comparison with work and conditions elsewhere in the EU, nurses in the Republic do exceedingly well: By comparison with most of their European counterparts and in …

“We are only interested in rescuing the casualties and saving lives.”

Pete Baker on March 19, 2007, 11:05 pm

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The notable comments on the army helicopter crash on Sunday, near an army base and a housing estate in Crossmaglen – from which four police officers and two military personnel were taken to hospital – are not those from the political parties’ representatives. They are from the Ambulance Service’s director of operations, Brian McNeill who described the episode from the ambulance crews’ point of view. Updated below Stones, fireworks and snowballs were hurled at the ambulance crew as they attempted …

“Ignorance is like cholera”

Pete Baker on February 12, 2007, 5:09 pm

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The Guardian, quite rightly, along with some other papers, pick up on the story of how Dr Gillian McKeith Phd Gillian McKeith, aka the poo lady, has agreed to drop the title Dr from her company’s advertising after a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority – although the quotes from the good lady herself might suggest otherwise. The ASA had come to the provisional conclusion that the use of the title in adverts was likely to mislead the public, given …

Peter Hain’s alternative remedy

Pete Baker on February 5, 2007, 7:02 pm

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If we’re going to spend public funds on providing any treatment through the NHS, and particularly if those treatments are to include acupuncture, aromatherapy and homeopathy, then it should only be on the basis that that treatment has undergone an independently verifiable trial and has been proven to be more effective than a placebo… not on the basis that the Secretary of State for Wales etc, Peter Hain is “certain, as a user of complementary medicine [him]self, that this has …

Harney stakes PD’s election claim through health reform?

Mick Fealty on January 30, 2007, 2:08 pm

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There appears to be a strange convergence on both sides of the Irish Sea in terms of the much needed reforms of the respective health services of the UK and the Republic. And the long term reputations of two senior players may rest upon their success, Tony Blair and former Tanaiste, Mary Harney. On the face of it, Harney may prove the more adept at picking her fights.The Bagehot column in the Economist does not think that the signs of …

EU freelance GPs pick up NHS slack…

Mick Fealty on December 18, 2006, 4:11 pm

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The Belfast Telegraph reports that the out of hours service is being run with the help of around 30 Polish doctors, who in turn pay for locums in Poland to attend to their own patients back home. “There is no shortfall in GP numbers in Northern Ireland,” the DHSS said. In order to provide OOHS services in Northern Ireland, all GPs, including those from other European Economic Area countries, must be registered with the GMC and meet the requirements of …

PDs prospects under McDowell…

Mick Fealty on September 12, 2006, 3:22 pm

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Good analysis (subs needed) from one of the Republic’s leading public psephologist, Noel Whelan, who notes that few, if any, of the party’s seats are safe and one or two look almost certain to go. The primary danger lies in the expected resurgence of Fine Gael after an extremely low point in 2002. Perhaps that’s why its voters were the first target in McDowell’s first press statement as leader. My own suspicion is that a noteably successful outcome from Harney’s …

How contraception built the Tiger economy…

Mick Fealty on August 30, 2006, 3:26 pm

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Contraception, apparently. According to Malcolm Gladwell, it’s what Harvard academics David Bloom and David Canning argue for some years now. When all other explanations are spent, it is the dramatic fall in the birth rate just after the Tiger generation that released a major amount of resources from sustaining a non working population and made way for economic growth rates double that of the EU average. Hat-tip to Fews Orange! “The introduction of demographics has reduced the need for the …

Tea healthier than water!!

Mick Fealty on August 24, 2006, 6:08 pm

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One of the guys down at the Folk Museum once told a group of us that the Irish drink more tea per head of population than any other group in the world, but some way. I can’t believe that is still true as the coffee bar is now ubiquitous north and south of the border, but it seems our oul wans knew a thing or two about health. Tea is in fact healthier than than water. It’s also good for …

PDs under self inflicted fire?

Mick Fealty on June 27, 2006, 2:01 am

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In the Republic the PD’s are under fire, not least from a supposedly unpublic bust up between Mary Harney and the party’s Justice Minister Michael McDowell. Harney’s been engrossed in what is argueably the toughest job in the cabinet, health. It can’t help that in a consumer survey of European health services, the Republic comes 26 out of 26 (PDF). Though I have seen the trollys at the Ulster Hospital, the expansion and modernisation of the Republic’s infrastructure are of …