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THE GOVERNMENT HAS all but confirmed that no members of the Royal Family will attend the 1916 centenary commemorations next year.
The possibility of a member or members of the Royal Family attending the centenary events had been been raised on the President’s State visit to the UK last year and has been the subject of much debate since.
However, speaking on Claire Byrne Live last night, junior arts minister Aodhán Ó Ríordáin said that such a prospect would “probably be a major distraction”.
The minister said he would “prefer” if this would not be the case but added:
I think it would be too much of a distraction.
He noted that the events next year are “not for the British Royal Family, it’s for us and for the Irish people”.
A poll carried out by Amárach Research for the programme found an even split between those who felt the Royals should be invited (44 per cent) and those who felt they shouldn’t (44 per cent).
On the same programme, the Fianna Fáil TD and grandson of Éamon De Valera, Éamon Ó Cuív, said that what happened at the 90th anniversary commemoration would be proportionate.
On that occasion the British military attaché from the embassy attended commemorative events.
The government will launch its 2016 commemorative programme at the Collins Barracks in Dublin this evening.
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No point ramping up anything in health care if you can’t ramp implement or agree on any decent recommendations. You’re just training new staff for better conditions abroad.
Train them..but a good share of them will leave, for a few years at least whilst some may not return at all. The conditions they have to work under in hospitals need to improve and then it may be more appealing….unless of course it becomes compulsory they stay in Ireland for at least 5 years after they’re qualified.
As for GP’s..well personally I think whilst there are great doctors out there, I wouldn’t like to guess the ratio of good to substandard to poor, there should be regular assessments in order for docs to stay registered.
@Laura H: To single out a group of people with a set of demands like that is very inhumane.
Doctors spend at least 5 years in full time university – watching most of their friends earn good money, while they continue to endure the hardships of student life. Then when finished, they are exposed to horrendous conditions for which they were not trained (they were trained to deal with sick people rather than a broken health service). And you have the audacity to suggest they should be forced to stay?? Shame on you.
And there are regular assessments for doctors, its called a professional competence requirement.
@Simran Collops: And the doctors aren’t assessed on a regular basis as in other places and so many people are misdiagnosed as a result.
Whu train extra doctors and nurses if they’re going to leave? Makes no sense to me.
@Laura H: Tying nurses here for 5 years after they qualify would be very wrong also. It’s not their fault the HSE is a badly managed runaway train.
@Laura H: GPs do have regular assessments to stay registered called continuous professional development where we have to submit a yearly audit and evidence of maintaining clinical competence to the Medical Council. This is on top of our already demanding workload. Perhaps you should do your research and get your facts in order before you post anything else in the future.
@Steve Karagiannis: I mean practical assessments
@Laura H: Correct Laura, we need to address the gaping hole in the bucket, instead of turning the tap to try to fill it.
You’ve clearly had a bad experience with a doctor – I feel sorry that that happened either to you, or to anyone. But that does not mean the quality of doctors in this country is poor. More realistically it is reflective of humans/doctors being overstretched in this dysfunctional system, with too many spinning plates (as they try to their best to compensate for the broken system), and inevitably dropping a few plates along the way.
We need to fix the system.
@Steve Karagiannis: There are great doctors out there, I definitely won’t dispute that but there are doctors that should be struck off
@Steve Karagiannis: Evidence of maintaining clinical competence is not the same as demonstrating clinical competence.
@Laura H: You know you can complain to the Medical council about a doctor. They take such complaints very seriously.
@Simran Collops: It wasn’t my intention to insult you, I was speaking generally. I’ve said there is great doctors out there, amazing and their occupation gives them so much satisfaction…but you have to admit, you’ve must have seen it yourselves, those who’ve lost that and are complacent.
Okay so I have had a bad experience..or two but that aside…something as trivial as a doctor who, for some reason keeps thinking I know where and how I fell during a grand mal..repeatedly have to tell him..annoys me.
@Laura H: becomes compulsory to stay for 5 years? That would lead to less people entering medicine and nursing !
@Shane Leonard: jesus I was only saying it in passing as the ONLY way they’d stay
@Laura H: How do you propose we do that? Get every GP to sit an exam at the end of the year? Get the Medical Council to sit on our consultations to see how we are doing? It’s impossible to assess ongoing clinical comptetence. We did our training like all specialist have done, passed all our assessments and are on the specialist register, what more can we do?
@Laura H: There are a LOT of GPs in Ireland. I’m curious as to the source of your information to say you are able to claim so many are not up to standard.
@Gavin Conran: I didn’t state so many aren’t up to standard, there are GP’s out there that are brilliant, top class at patient care and are generally well known in each locality, full to capacity and impossible to become a patient of.
Then there are also the GP’s in each locality that were known to be great at one point but have lost that reputation due to multiple misdiagnoses & complacency. Multiple visits before ending up in A&E with serious illness – not referring to myself btw
@Simran Collops: I did an apprenticeship, 4 years, had to sign on for 9. It’s perfectly acceptable to many of us, what’s so special about your grouping other than that they have survived the “hardships of student life” lol.
@Shane Leonard: If that would put some off (which honestly I doubt), then so be it, there are many out there who would fill those gaps gladly I imagine.
@Simran Collops: “And you have the audacity to suggest they should be forced to stay?? Shame on you.”, as in rude and disrespectful behaviour? Step down off that horse! Shame on you!!
@Shane Leonard: I understand the conditions they work under are tough on them – and I know what my son is going to have to endure – and ultimately it’s a huge test on a person’s endurance. I couldn’t do it. For one, I don’t possess the intelligence..and secondly I’m in awe of those who undertake to choose to do it, it’s a life devotion & commitment involving continuous learning.
You can’t compare it to any other occupation. It’s in a different realm altogether.
@Chutes: it would. Im a nurse of 15 years- a lot of the nurses that are coming through only do it because it’s a ticket around the world. Irish nurses are very highly skilled and regarded in the UK, Oz, America and Canada- And are treated much better.
@Chutes: Lol… I am amused, because despite having upset you, you emphasised my point quite nicely – as well as reminded me of how hard I need to work to communicate effectively.
No @Chute – I am not trying to say that there is anything special about the cohort of students who study medicine here. Far from it. But for anyone to suggest that this same cohort then be forced to stay and work in appalling conditions in this country is nothing short of discrimination. (Something I have noticed you call out quite a bit in other posts, eh?)
We are not the best at planning ahead. This like the housing crisis, rail upgrades, childrens hospitals this should all have been done 10+ years ago… We love to look back on good ole days and reelin in the years
Where will they live
@David Mercedes: they’re not coming in from overseas. Presumably they’ll live where they would live if they were doing another course or none.
So training up new staff who will go abroad, cos who in their right mind especially from the healthcare sector would touch the likes of the HSE at present. I mean this government proved during covid where its loyalties were, when student nurses on the front lines got nothing for their efforts, the pandemic bonus still hasnt been paid to some people yet. But a certain former HSE top dog Paul Reid, got a pay rise during the crisis, and is the only health exec I know that had a bloody state car and driver under his bum to literally ferry him around doing stupid PR events which didnt help ally fears cos he was like rest running most of these state bodies, completely out of touch.
We need to change the system so that doctors do not all come from the same small segment of society. How many doctors come from working-class backgrounds – almost none. This needs to change so that working-class people have access to doctors who understand and empathize with them. The UK is looking at apprenticeship style training for new doctors to increase their numbers – we should do the same. We need doctors from all communities not just one.
The French are looking at introducing a system whereby new doctors have to work for a number of years in the public health sector in the areas that have insufficient doctors in return for the vast amount of tax payers money that is used to train doctors in the first place.
@Pat the Baker: what does your background have to do with it? My neuro is from Cork and the soundest guy going, highly regarded but humble and so caring about each and every one of his patients – and dedicated to his research in his chosen field – an absolutely brilliant guy. You assume every doctor was born in upper class family, that’s simply not true – even if it was, empathy is not lost somewhere along the way. To choose the profession, the med student is aware of their choice, they work towards that choice for their leaving cert and hpat. They care, they want to make a difference. The doctors my son has worked with have been so happy to have my son work alongside them in order to gain experience, absolutely amazing. If they ever got too big for their boots their mam would cut them down to size anyway :)
@Pat the Baker: BTW, I’m not upper class, probably average working Jo
@Pat the Baker: doctors come from all classes now Pat, result of the much maligned points system
Another way to increase the number of doctors is to create a pathway from qualified nurse to doctor – this would be the logical thing to do as nurses have already completed a significant part of the training and with 5+ years on the job experience should be able to progress in their chosen career.
@Pat the Baker: You are talking sense – try getting your excellent suggestion past the vested interests who consistently blame the government, are all going abroad but basically do not want to change the system.
@Michael Reilly: There’s such a miserable anti doctor attittude in this country. Without doctors and esp non-consultant hospital doctors, the system would have utterly collapsed many years ago. No other group would endure the types of conditions and the types strains doctors are put under in the HSE.
@Pat the Baker: There is. Its a 4 year degree called graduate entry medicine. Its mainly aimed at health care professionals or those with a science background. Nursing and medicine are two different professions.
@Tom D: I’m with you in some respects on this one Tom. I agree that without the non cons docs in the hospitals it’d be a disaster and I have to say I couldn’t fault St James’ when I was there, everyone was brilliant, such great quality of care. My surgery was rescheduled a few times which indicated the pressure and lack of staff. Being honest I have asked my son to stay here when he qualifies – not for me but for the system. Yes, the system is in dire need of repair but nothings going to happen if they can’t keep medical doctors – at least if the cogs were to start turning and it were to normalise, conditions could eventually get better, younger doctors could enter into a less stress filled environment.
@Pat the Baker: great idea, also should have pathway for plummers to become architects, bus drivers to replace the shortage of airline pilots, firework makers rocket scientist’s, lab techs as astrophysicists………….brilliant
@Tom D: the undergraduate medicine course of six years can be funded under Susi. After that another 6 years of specialization follows. The postgraduate route is very expensive costing in total 100k and leaves most doctors in debt. They generate leave another profession such as management consultancy, finance etc for which they’ve already worked hard for their degree. Medicine is a vocation. Sad to lose such talent and dedication.
Strange I have been an outpatient of Saint Vincent’s Hospital for years, must say does not look a terrible place to work. Any staff I met seem happy enough. I wish during my working live, places were as good. I have worked in some terrible places in awful conditions
@Peter: Yes, the building looks nice. I liked working there too, as I did several times during my post-graduate training. However, it is the hours – coupled with the verbal abuse by both patients and colleagues alike – that conspire to make the job soul-destroying.
The Health service relies on well-minded and kind-hearted people to go above and beyond their call of duty, in order to paper over the inadequacies in the system in which they work. When health staff talk of burnout – it is because they cared too much, and put themselves second in order to prioritise their patients.
If you haven’t read or seen the TV series, ‘This is going to Hurt’ – I suggest its both a good read and a good watch. Though even that doesn’t come close to describing the true experience of many junior doctors.
@Peter: these doctors are regularly working over 60 hours a every single week. They cannot even be sure of getting to a friends wedding . they are being squeezed dry to shore up a rotten system.
Look, I just don’t know why they’re ramping up numbers when it’s going to make absolutely no difference. Fair play to you by the way for getting through it all, it’s tough going, admire the profession (the good ones). Son told me about a registrar that told him not to do it, to do something else so I know how bad it is. And I know first chance he gets he’s taking that exam to get to US and he’s gone. He’s only finished 4th year now so next year he’s got the degree and I also know his eyes haven’t been opened to what he’ll be doing for the few years after that.
I won’t be begging him to come back if he goes.
Chicken and egg.
Main reason our health system is bad is the lack of staff.
We can’t keep them because they are over worked
The reason they are over worked?
Lack of staff.
Bring in a law that qualified staff have to stay for a number of years?
How do you do that, confiscate passports???
Maybe barb wire fences, they seem to work.
@P.J. Nolan: You include it as part of the allocation of doctor training places at university. That way you assign the places to the people who are committed to providing healthcare in the country that paid for their privilege.
@Pat the Baker: Not the mercenaries who just want the doctorate to move to the USA where they are paid enormous amounts of money pandering to people with big wallets and imaginary illnesses.
@Pat the Baker: nurses already work on wards unpaid for three years as part of their degree. Supposedly supernumerary – many the time they are relied upon to staff the ward.
I know all that, my son is a med student.
@Laura H: Prepare for him to go elsewhere. Conditions are appalling in Ireland. If it weren’t for my own Mammy, I’d never have come back.
@Laura H: I wish him well. Make sure he maintains a good study/life balance but more importantly when he graduates a good work/life balance to avoid burnout
Anyone who has family working in the Public hospitals know what an unbelievable mess it is. They are treated disgracefully , private hospitals offering better conditions, better ratios on site parking sign on bonus etc. The ones who are staying going to private hospitals . The Mater cannot staff the new wards . But lots of managers ! No healthcare people but lots of managers .
There are lots of ways to solve this problem – handwringing isn’t one of them which is all our politicians seem to do despite Leo and Michael Martin being doctors themselves.
If the system still Nokia /manual typewriters
No point to get trained how to use Apple .mac book pro.
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