Hospitals the responsibility of Government, not Charities.

The existing Holles Street hospital is to be closed and moved to the grounds of St Vincent’s Hospital. An example of Co-Location where we put the two hospitals together, in this instance a maternity hospital with a major teaching hospital. So far so good.

The State is giving sole ownership of the New Maternity Hospital, a €300 million complex planned for Elm Park campus, next to St Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin to the Sisters of Charity!  This has excited people and not necessarily for good reason.

The Sisters of Charity is a religious order that has paid just €2 million of the €5 million that it promised to pay in compensation after the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, published its report, in 2009. 40% of what it promised to pay and the State are gifting them a €300 million complex because they own the land that the state is going to build the hospital on!

It appears to some that governance issues are resolved, and all involved (bar a lot of the taxpayers) appear happy. I was listening to the Master of the hospital Rhona Mahony and heard her say it will “be clinically and operationally entirely independent, in line with national maternity policy”. Simon Harris has said similar. He also claims that the Government will have a golden share!  that said the St Vincent’s Group will still have 4 of their own nominees as directors of the hospital.

What is the benefit to the Sisters of Charity of owning the new National Maternity Hospital? Why do they want to own it and I suppose more to the point why is it being given to them?

Well a former Master of the National Maternity Hospital Dr. Peter Boylan said that if IVF, sterilisation, abortion and gender reassignment were to be carried out at the National Maternity Hospital, it would be the only hospital in the world owned and run by a Catholic order to allow them. It appears that these are some of the proposed functions of the maternity hospital and these may well be contrary to teaching of the Catholic Church and so contrary to the ethos of the hospital. Maybe he’s just trying to panic people?

Our own Bishop Kevin Doran in an interview with the Sunday Times newspaper confirmed that Catholic Hospitals must follow Catholic rules. He referred to three tenets of canon law which decree that land held by religious institutions is “ecclesiastical property” over which the Pope has “primacy of governance”. He said he was speaking “in general terms” as the National Maternity Hospital is not in his diocese and he was unfamiliar with the legal relationship between the Sisters of Charity and St Vincent’s Healthcare Group. In fairness to Bishop Kevin he may well have put clarity into the discussion and has shown that the Master of the National Maternity Hospital may not have been 100% correct on her take of the situation.

This highlights the crux of the issue for lots of people, we’re in the 21^st century and feel that secularism is a way forward especially in multicultural Ireland. We have as a society in recent years started to totally abhor church involvement in Education, Health and Social Services in general. Sometimes for valid reasons other times purely on reasons of principle. A wise friend once told me that principles are a fine thing if you can afford to keep to them!

Speaking to the Irish Medical Organisation, Harris said the new hospital was desperately needed: “It is not good enough for women to have to put up with delivering their babies in Holles Street, which the master very clearly says is not fit for purpose.”

Now back to the debate. Why did it take so long for this to come out? How well was the preparation done? Were all bases covered? Was an effort made to take the corners off the peg to fit them into the round hole??

I’m delighted that debate has started at last, I agree we need a new hospital however is a short-term gain going to get in the way of long term problems? We may find ourselves on a very sticky wicket in a few years’ time.

For me this highlights a lot of things. Firstly, Church and State are two conflicting entities, we claim to be a modern Republic and the State can look after its people, but can it? Government has tried to put “smacht” on the church remember Enda closed our embassy to The Holy See and yet in times of need we go back to the church. Secondly, we fail to think things through, major decisions are not “tested”. In other words, we don’t look at the possible outcomes down the road. What may happen?? Thirdly cabinet are signing off on major plans without proper discussion. Fourthly it appears we don’t learn from our mistakes in fact the arrogance displayed in not anticipating the backlash is the genesis of that backlash. And most importantly I believe that there was an attempt to hoodwink us regarding the running of the hospital. Simon Harris and the Master of the Hospital want this hospital at any cost. The fact that the Bishop of Elphin was the one to clear things up highlights why we need to be so careful when we’re dealing with taxpayers money and that our Ministers are not always stating the facts! 

I still think that the land ownership must be resolved. It would be best for all (especially the nuns) if the land was sold to the state, the debt that the sisters have with the state be written off and the new hospital be built. I believe that everyone would win as there is absolutely no need for this row to continue.

We should be respectful of the great Samaritan work of Irish nuns. But hospitals are now the responsibility of Government, not charities.

Helicopters and Ireland

Like most people, I was shocked when I woke up last Tuesday to news that Rescue 116 had disappeared off the Mayo coast and four crewmembers were missing. Then a casualty was found and she was critical. Now as I write there are 3 crew members still missing. This incident has shocked the country and we’re all talking about it. Rightly so too as it highlights quite a few things but one is that we as a nation are reliant on helicopters quite a bit.

This is of course not the first loss of life we’ve had with our air-sea rescue services either. No back in 1999 Captain Dave O’Flaherty, Captain Michael Baker, Sergeant Paddy Mooney, and Corporal Niall Byrne were all killed in Waterford when their Air Corps Dauphin helicopter crashed. They were returning from a successful rescue mission but crashed having aborted three attempted landings at Waterford Airport due to the foggy conditions.

The late Capt. Dara Fitzpatrick has a Roscommon GAA connection, her sister Niamh worked with the Roscommon minor team of 2006 as their sports psychologist and was also involved in 2010 when Roscommon won the Connacht Championship. This is all to highlight the closeness of events that happen.

Now back to the helicopters the Gardaí routinely use a helicopter as part of their policing and on the night of the Rescue 116 crash in Mayo a Garda helicopter was in action in the skies of Roscommon. In fact, if you heard a loud noise in the sky on Tuesday night it could well have been them, in addition, there is an Air Corps helicopter based in Custume Barracks Athlone to provide an air ambulance service.

We see politicians being photographed with the helicopter and you’d almost swear they either flew it or bought it the way they talk however the sad thing is that like a lot of things in the country we’re freewheeling when it comes to services. The car is out of gear and we’re coasting down the hill that’s grand but if there’s a hill to climb we can’t get up it! And folks we’re in very hilly ground when it comes to helicopters!

You may have heard talk of top cover and the fact that the Air Corps, when asked, were unable to provide it for R116. During Search and Rescue Topcover Missions the Air Corps will arrive on scene ahead of the Rescue helicopter. They can make contact with the Vessel to ascertain the condition of the patient, check the weather on scene and pass these details back to the helicopter. They also pass on relevant instructions from the helicopter crews to the vessel so they can prepare for winching.

The Radar Operators monitor the helicopter and target vessel. They pass on constant updates of bearing and range so the helicopter crews can work out performance calculations and fuel planning. The flight crew keep communications with the Coast Guard and Air Traffic control and advise them on the status of the mission. When the patient has been transferred and assessed the flight crew will then coordinate with Air Traffic control once a destination has been decided upon.

So, the Air Corps were unable to help, why? Well, it seems that over the years the numbers coming into the Air Corps has been fallen and those leaving have been going up. You see we decided to stop recruiting people to various organisations during the “recession” and these decisions are returning to bite. The fact that the Air Corps could not fly when requested last week did not cause the deaths of the crew on R116 but it highlights the problems we have.

We did not recruit Gardaí but we still have people retiring, what happens? We lose loads of experience together and a police force lacking in experience. We have inexperienced supervisors and managers and all sorts of problems arise. Government addresses this by closing stations to reduce the need to supervise or manage (they have not admitted this but they have not properly explained the rational so I may be correct). The same in local authorities, health care and basically all public services.

The two Garda helicopters and the Garda plane are flown by the Air Corps, the Emergency Aeromedical Service (Air Ambulance) operated for the National Ambulance service which Marian Harkin and Gerry Cowley advocated when they were TDs in Dáil Éireann is flown by the Air Corps, the maritime patrols are flown by the Air Corps, the Government Ministers are flown by the Air Corps and their primary military role is to provide air support to the Army and Navy.

We did not recruit sufficient people for years and now we are hoping that training a few pilots will solve the problem. I'm sorry but that will not cut the mustard. We need major investment to be carried out very quickly and a decision needs to be taken to increase the size and capability of the Air Corps.