Cannabis is a divisive topic wherever you live. I live in Norwich, in the east of England, yet I am as attached to the issue as someone with a severe chronic illness in Brighton, or London, or Belfast is. This is because I have made a feature length documentary about this very issue. To expand: it is about the largely beneficial effect that cannabis has on people with chronic illnesses. Those who feel the war on drugs has prohibited their …
With the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) in the news once again, I wanted to take this opportunity to provide some insight into the ongoing internal problems within the service. This time the spotlight has been shone on staffing shortages after it was revealed that 25 shifts lay vacant last Saturday night, the equivalent of 12 ambulances unavailable to respond to emergencies. Given that there are usually around 55 ambulances to cover the whole country this represents a significant reduction …
Here’s one of the first political benefits of shifting serious ministerial offices, Michelle O’Neill announces that Northern Ireland will move towards the one year deferral system common across the UK… Ms O’Neill said on Thursday that she would lift the ban in favour of a ‘”one-year deferral system” as is the case in the rest of the UK. This means that gay and bisexual men can give blood one year after their last sexual contact with another man. Michelle O’Neill …
All of the party leaders, before the recent election, committed themselves to taking politics out of health. Is that realistic? I would suggest not. But what we can do is we can take politics out of the day to day running of Health and Social Care. That is an entirely different prospect. Bevan’s original idea of the Health Service was that it would dramatically improve the health of the population. Demand would decrease and cost would be reduced. This …
Siobhan O’Neill is a professor of mental health sciences at Ulster University. She is currently leading several studies on mental health and suicide in Northern Ireland. It seems that we can’t move nowadays with mental health awareness; the latest being Princes Harry and William, and Princess Katherine, all throwing their weight behind campaigns to get people talking about mental health. About time too. With (at least) one in four people suffering from a mental illness at some point in their …
Michael Moore from MacMillan Cancer Support writes for us about the importance of healthcare in the next Assembly A new Assembly mandate brings uncertainty around some key issues in Northern Ireland. But one thing is clear – the quality of care for people living with cancer and other long term conditions must not be determined by rolling the political dice. Party manifestos appeared throughout April with a plethora of commitments on the future of health and social care, including plenty …
Hey ho, so the former Minister for Health Edwin Poots has won his appeal on the so-called ‘Gay Blood’ issue… There is no basis for the conclusion that the Minister’s decision in this case was predetermined by his Christian beliefs and there is ample evidence to indicate that the Minister approached the decision-making by evaluating the competing factors before adopting on a precautionary basis the status quo. “We do not consider that the fair minded and informed observer could conclude that …
Michael Moore is Policy Officer at Macmillan Cancer Support In a matter of weeks, the Assembly election outcome will be known and elected MLAs will be contemplating their priorities for the next five years. The numbers, needs and experiences of people affected by cancer in Northern Ireland make a powerful case for cancer care remaining high on the agenda. We want to see all parties in government working together – along with Health and Social Care providers and charities – …
Sinn Fein Court woes, FF war in Roscommon, FG’s Health worries and Independents searching for their moment….It’s all the goss from #ge16
BANNING SMOKING IN CARS: Simon Hamilton has proposed an amendment to the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) bill which will aim to ban smoking in cars with children. This proposal has been in effective since 1st October in England. I am not totally sure what the penalties will be if you’re caught, but some analysis from when it came in said
Guest Blogger Ann Allan talks about the Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month event at Stormont on Monday November 2nd As a blogger I’m always on the look out for a subject for my next blog. In my case it is usually something witty (hopefully) and the word ‘me’ or ‘I’ comes up quite a lot. As I lay in bed last night unable to sleep I was thinking about what I was going to write about for my next blog. It …
Lovely Annette is gone. She worked for me 23 years and over that time not once did I have cause to admonish her. To my shame she had a few occasions on which to admonish me. She became the unofficial staff spokesperson willing to raise issues yet keen to seek compromise and almost always did. In 2010 fearful of staff job losses due to adverse trading conditions she got a commitment that there would be no salary reductions or lay-offs. …
In the fallout from the murder of Kevin McGuigan and the decision of Nesbitt to play the strong man the DUP have had to tilt the unionist axis back towards Dundela Avenue, deploying the “in-out” routine as part of he “no business as usual” policy. All this means the health minister has been kept away from his position in office. Brian SpencerBrian is a writer, artist, political cartoonist and legal blogger. Actively tweeting from @brianjohnspencr. More information here: http://www.brianjohnspencer.com/ www.brianjohnspencer.com/
So, Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary for England and Wales, wants consultants to work a 7-day week, and is prepared to impose this. Simon Hamilton, the local Health Minister, agrees. This demand is based on there being 6,000 extra and unnecessary deaths (in England and Wales) when patients are admitted at the weekends. This assertion is questionable. Elective patients are admitted during the week, and not so much at weekends. Ancillary services in the community may be reduced at weekends; A&E departments …
“In a certain state it is indecent to go on living. To vegetate on in cowardly dependence on physicians and medicaments after the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost ought to entail the profound contempt of society.” Friedrich Nietzsche 1860. Not much fun that boy Nietzsche. Certainly not much fun if you are as Yeats phrased it “old and grey and full of sleep and nodding by the fire” but then maybe you would be totally …
The diagnosis of death is mostly straightforward; the medical practitioner looks for somatic, cardio-respiratory and neurological features. Clearly, someone with rigor mortis is dead. Someone with no spontaneous breathing, no heartbeat and no pulse, and whose pupils are fixed and dilated presents the classical features of death. This is usually enough to diagnose most cases of ‘death’, though as the Victorians had a morbid dread of being buried alive, the tradition of requesting a surgeon to open an artery persisted …
Medical practitioners who wish to practice medicine in the UK must by law be registered with the General Medical Council (GMC). If you do not practice, you are not required to register. The GMC is a regulatory body which publishes guidance on the ‘Duties of a Doctor’. Much of this is about registration, and practice in general. In the Republic, the [Irish] Medical Council performs a very similar regulatory and guiding role today (here). The British Medical Association (BMA) is …
Michael McBride is crystal clear; our Chief Medical Officer believes too many people are vaping and this is a bad thing. In a recent TV interview he was unambiguous in his discouragement of e-cigarettes. The views of CMO are important, people listen and people take note. He’s not alone; the British Medical Association, WHO, European Commission and the Welsh Assembly are all censorious. So are they right? One thing on which Michael McBride and I agree is the need …
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 …
The conviction of Dr. Eireann Kerr raises more questions than it answers and brings the law into disrepute. Dr. Kerr was in 2013 a 30 year old anaesthetist working in Altnagelivn. On a work night out she became grossly intoxicated and attacked a police officer biting his finger and calling the police officers peasants before waking up claiming no memory of the event in the police station the next morning. So far, so unremarkable. Maybe Dr. Kerr was a little …
