Personal view of a combined, Public and Private, healthservice in Ireland

international | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Wednesday November 14, 2007 20:02

by Michelle Clarke - Social Justice and Ethics

Dr. Teresa Graham spoke on radio and TV 13th November 2007 on MRSA and Families

Personal Reflections of illness and the Irish system

MRSA and its impact on people, on families........Are we negligent?

It is not acceptable for our hospitals to be plagued with a disease that is in effect a silent killer and if it fails to kill you leaves you a victim for life of health system that will eventually destroy you.

For people with long term illness, the lack of multi-disciplinary medics and an over abundance of management/staff, cleaners etc., the hospitals do not get cleaned as used to be the case.

The difference is motive is different, hours are shorter, insurance claims abound and alcohol is at an all time high for consumption.....hence nobody has conscience, nor feelings, there is no real compassion otherwise we would all be thinking of others.........and our Health system would reflect this ....... it would be pro-actively interconnected with research through our universities and they would become interactive with the patient as a potential to arriving at health/disease/illness outcomes.

Personally, I am bipolar with anxiety, who had a riding accident in Zimbabwe in 1993 (the little Company of Mary Sisters ran the hospital there - clean yes and hygiene was ultra important in a country where HIV was a major killer. Motive is a very good reason). There was only one elderly neurologist and ENT specialist....I survived and got back home......

You say multi-discplinary in Ireland - surely this is but aspiration with such a competitive breed of medical cohorts.....When can we stop saying that only those who excel with points in the Leaving Certificate are eligible.......for professions that are about people who get sick.

I have no numeracy, I need a care assistant, I need a public health nurse etc. but once you are meek and mild in this country - you cannot manage the administration, the phone, the public system, the private system, getting a medical card etc. I would add that people facing retirement may experience what ABI brought to my door in their dealings with health, sometimes, for the first and last time.

No short term memory is a deterrent to being an effective user of the bureaucracy (does any one think about the homeless and how unkept they are......). So you are tossed up on a heap.....the husband of 15 years leaves you; the divorce added to brain injury, the madness, the anxiety, the stress, becomes Burn Out i.e. Chronic Fatigue or ME i.e. low immune system. I live in Dublin 4 and daily meet the homeless/are those living in hostels but who must vacate them from 9.00 to 5.00 in the day......I was horrified to hear Simon findings stated 58 people were found dead in the last 18 months.....Why?

To go to the public hospital for me, who constantly picks up infections, even just to get Lithium bloods which need to be monitored every six weeks, is a health hazard or so it seems if you listen to media about MRSA and other infections, for people like me, with low immuno deficiency.

Then add to this the headline today that numbers are rising going into psychiatric hospitals. Why not. People need to wake up about Compassion and Concern.

My parents were bought doctors in the Dispensary system rural. The dispensary while almost stately was cleaned daily, with bleach etc. it was system and the family all were involved.....we knew about germs, the surgery as you entered made you feel what 'Sterile' was about.

Thanks to chronic fatigue, I moved into agoraphobia - so conscious of how I liked to keep my home space, how clean I like the kitchen and bathrooms to be ...... sickness of pure exhaustion left me totally frustrated with my condition - a condition in health I never sought. Anyone can enter long-term ill-health.

As Luck would have it, some years ago, I met a man in Dublin 4, at the nearest bus stop to me.....who knows what he saw but he has been my guardian angel and proectector. The state the medics got away with a patient centred approach to a combination of illnesses but when I get enough strength and abide to slow pace, I share my experience on Indymedia, because I have a view, I have experience.

Dr. Graham, I agree with what you say. I have looked through the OECD report today (via the Web) and the aspirations and examples are documented.

The doctor in Wales when given the task of reducing MRSA, he approached it, as it ought to be approached and everything is possible if you put your mind, the patient minds, the staff, and priorities. Thanks for speaking out on MRSA.

One point I know Chronic Fatigue has existed for several hundred years and that exhaustions were often referred to in the past yet nobody alerts people about the risks of hospitals to people with ME.....Why? Has the time not come to stop Crisis Management......and tribunals.

Michelle Clarke

Imagination - John O'Donohue Anam Cara

'The imagination is the great friend of the unknown. Endlessly , it invokes and releases the power of possibility. Friendship, then, is not to be reduced to an exclusive or sentimental relationship; it is a far more extensive and intensitve force'

The Body:
'The body is your clay home, your only home in the Universe....When you cease to be in fear with your solitude, a new creativity awakens in you. Your forgotten or neglected inner wealth begins to reveal itself. You come home to yourself and learn to rest within. Thoughts are our inner senses. Infused with silence and solitude, they bring out the mystery of the inner landscape'

Aristotle reflection on friendship and Ethics
'He grounds friendship on the idea of goodness and beauty. A friend is someone who wishes good for the other...our feelings towards our friends reflect our feelings towards ourselves'