EDITOR – Before last Christmas my family had to evacuate our home in Ballincollig because of carbon monoxide. This was a very stressful incident, as it resulted in the family being moved from one location to the next on a daily basis throughout December 2021, up until March of this year.
The biggest impact was on my elderly mother who has multiple health issues and is heading for 90 years of age.
My mother’s health and safety became a priority and our doctor recommended respite care.
This led me to contact a local nursing home. In contrast to the other facilities that I contacted via phone, I found their personnel more switched on to the needs of my elderly mother, in contrast to the larger HSE-run facilities.
To my surprise, my mother settled in very quickly and a long-term option was favourably contemplated. The rationale behind my mother’s decision was very simple – she had found a uniquely human experience, a family atmosphere and homelike environment.
The benefits of a smaller nursing home became glaringly obvious, including that patients receive a better one-to-one caring relationship with staff. Everyone knows each other by first name.
Personally, I have got to know all the staff and most of the residents.
I have even got to know one of the owners, who constantly rolls up his sleeves and can be found painting, cutting the grass, cutting the hedges, fixing windows/doors, and often sits down for a cup of tea and to chat with the residents.
Yet smaller private nursing homes receive far less funding than the larger HSE facilities.
In addition, the staff of smaller private nursing homes are still waiting for their fair share of the €1,000 Covid bonus that has already been paid to HSE workers.
Why is this discrimination being tolerated and why was this disparity not addressed in the recent Budget? Were the smaller nursing homes and their staff not in the frontline of the Covid crisis, when we needed them most?
Ger Tobin,
Ballincollig.
Some chemists handing out opiates like candy
EDITOR – Codeine, an opium or heroin-type derivative, has a strong grip over many people in this country — according to the recent Prime Time special.
Once again, the government’s lame reaction has been that if the guidelines are not followed regarding dispensing painkillers then it will have ‘a word with the regulator’ — which appears to be totally ineffective at controlling a very serious problem.
The exposé showed codeine painkillers being given out in the vast majority of cases without any consultation with the patient in flagrant breach of guidelines.
Some countries are so concerned about the dangers that they have made codeine products available only on prescription.
Judging by what we saw on the exposé and the harrowing accounts of people getting into dire trouble with codeine and dying from the damage the drug did to their system, codeine painkillers should be completely banned.
Painkillers without codeine have proven to be just as effective, but not highly addictive.
There is now a very big problem with addiction in this country and addictive substances which are very easy to get.
The reasons for this may be the drive in sales and putting incomes before people’s safety.
The medical profession as a whole, which intrinsically includes pharmacists, live by the tenet ‘do no harm’, yet some seem to be doing great harm by not following strict procedures in dispensing opium pain killers like sweets in a candy store and putting patients at risk of becoming addicts.
Maurice Fitzgerald,
Shanbally.
Greyhounds get €18m during a housing crisis
EDITOR – Back in the 80s Ireland, a Dublin punk band snarled that Ireland was a ‘banana republic’.
Pressing fast forward and Ireland has ripened into a country that is beyond comprehension, devoid of a functional democracy and steered by a political class lacking intelligence and foresight.
The evidence: the allocation of taxpayers’ money to fund recreational activities with minority appeal, trumping the allocation of money aiming to solve genuine human and animal welfare issues.
Allocated in Budget 2023 was €91m to horse and greyhound racing – that’s €18.2m for Greyhound Racing Ireland and €72.8m for Horse Racing Ireland.
This legal squandering of scarce public money is particularly deplorable at a time when our country’s health and housing is in crisis, standing alongside many worthy social causes pleading for adequate funding.
Money extracted from the citizen’s purse is being dished out to support two minority recreational interests that have a seam of animal cruelty, illegal drug use and financial malpractice running through them.
Double standards and political cowardice is the balm for the people by our elected representatives.
John Tierney,
Association of Hunt Saboteurs,
Dublin 1.
