Mayo Doctors and Pharmacists prepare Medical Card holders for Over Dosing - By Declan O' Toole

                                                                                                                                                                

Gerard Howlin of the Irish Pharmacist Union says “our members are frustrated by the fact that there is a problem around medicines being wasted and we believe that this is costing the taxpayer millions every year.”

This claim was in response to a matter brought to their attention where by an elderly patient of Castlebar General Hospital was prescribed drugs on the Medical Card scheme, far in excess of what he needed, sometimes on a daily basis. 

The patient would attend the hospital for day treatment and prescribed medicines that were to be consumed over the following week. The prescription would be collected from their local pharmacy the same evening.

The very next day, the patient would return to Castlebar General and be issued with the same prescription, along with several other items. The Patient would once again return to the pharmacy with his new prescription, only to be re-issued the drugs he had received not 24 hours previous, along with the newly prescribed medicine. 

On the next day the patient would attend the Hospital and receive another prescription, requesting the same medication as the two previous days, along with several more. Yet again when the prescription was brought before the pharmacist the patient would receive copious amounts of the same medication he had been issued with, in the days previous.

The patient’s family claim “we made both the pharmacist and hospital aware of the amounts of medication we were receiving, but our efforts fell on deaf ears”.

This issue was brought to the attention of a pharmaceutical scientist, who examined the various different medication prescribed to the Medical Card holder and found that not only was he completely over prescribed medication but that much of the drugs on his prescription were in fact the same tablet, but manufactured by different medical companies.

It was found that in one instance the patient required two tablespoons of a particular medicine but was instead was issued with three litres of it. 

After the patient passed away, the members of his family returned to the pharmacist, two plastic bags full to the brim of prescribed drugs with an estimated value of between €2500-€3000.

In a statement from the IPU they said, “The Irish Pharmacy Union has made proposals to the Department of Health and Children and the HSE to tackle the issue. This includes the introduction of medicine use reviews, where the pharmacist would carry out a consultation with a patient who was on a number of medicines and review all of the medication they had been prescribed and how the patient was managing the medicines. We believe that this would promote not only the more efficient use of medicines and that it would also lead better outcomes for patients. However, these proposals have not been implemented.”

A spokesman for the Irish Patients Association said, "These allegations are very serious patient safety issues that require investigation into how there was duplication of prescriptions. Investigation within the hospital as to how the patients records were referred to before the doctor re-prescribed the medications, investigation by perhaps the Pharmaceutical Society Ireland, the pharmacy regulator, as to how such quantities were dispensed with a day or two in the first place and finally the H.S.E. should set up a process to investigate large quantity of returns by patients or their family.”

The HSE declined to make a formal comment on the matter, but did say however, that any such activity was wrong and merits a full investigation.

Fine Gael's Feighan to introduce Irish to Clare Island

Clare Island Harbour, Clare Island, Co. Mayo.

Fine Gael have come under heavy scrutiny from Conradh na Gaeilga recently for once again bringing the issue of the Irish language to the table as a subject that should be made optional after the Junior Cert.

This issue rises it’s head again on the horizon of the Fine Gaels proposal of turning the entire English speaking population of Clare Island, into a Gaeltacht.

Enda Kenny has frequently said that the language has failed to revive because of the compulsory nature of the subject.

The Irish language movement, Conradh na Gaeilga, warns that making the language an optional one would cause a huge decline in the subject being chosen by students.

They also claim that the notion of being able to drop the subject before Leaving Cert would de-motivate students from an early age. This would deteriorate interest in the language further more as the subject has inherited a preconceived notion of being difficult.

Many argue that although the subject and the way it is taught needs to under-go huge reform, the introduction of the language as an optional subject would mean the certain death of our native tongue and a big part of our unique culture.

Which brings us to the other side of the wall. From what appears to be the Fine Gael agenda to the "Feighan agenda".

It is only a few months ago, the natives of Clare Island, Co. Mayo played host to Fine Gael Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Spokesman, Frank Feighan TD.

Feighan, visited the island in late August last year to see if it could perhaps be a suitable breeding ground for the reintroduction of the Irish language.

The TD provoked criticism himself at the appointment of his position as he is not an Irish speaker however he feels that it is possible to convert the Clare Island population of 160 to become a Gaeltacht area.

There was mixed reactions on the island to the ambitious plans of the TD.

One islander claimed, “it wouldn’t take a lot to encourage the island and the young people on it to speak Irish, though I was taught Irish for 14 years and I couldn’t speak a word of it the day I left school. We were taught to know the language not to speak it. It was never enforced upon us as our parents thought it a waste of time, considering the plan was to emigrate to the UK or America.”

TD Feighan came to this conclusion that Clare Island would be an “ideal testing ground for the Irish language” after his visit to the island to discuss unemployment, tourism and the broadband infrastructure.

Another Clare Island local says, “That is the daftest idea I have heard in a long time, it would be more in TD Feighans mind to go off and learn Irish himself instead of telling me I should learn it. I am 66 years of age and as much as I would love to be able to speak my native tongue, I’m not going to be learning it this late in life. If it was as easy as turning up on the island and deciding ‘right your all going to talk Irish’ then the mainland would be all Irish speaking. Where would funding for such a project come from? Where would that money have better being spent?”

He went on to say, “The island has greater problems than the language we speak such as unemployment and the amount of young people leaving here for work. Our tourism industry isn’t a quarter of what it was, now let them fix that before they fix the Language I talk. If you ask me, the man Feighan is only an amadán”

Celtic Tiger Cubs - by Declan O' Toole

Fat Frogs, Jager-Bombers and €20 entrance fee’s. These were our fabulously extravagant college nights out… we were, the Celtic Tiger Cubs.

Before the recession, we had seen more nights out then Pete Doherty and classier nights on the tiles then that of the Hilton sisters.

We have hazy memories of parting with €10 notes for a plastic roses from ladies wearing head scarves, on the door step of the club. We have blurry recollections of handing over €5 notes in the gents, to coloured men dressed as Ali G in exchange of a squirt of Jean Paul Gaultier and a stick of Juicy Fruit gum.

We drove our VW Golf’s down to the shop, 200 yards away to pick up mixers fore the night in, before the night out. We arrived home from work claiming we had quit our part-time job because our boss asked us to do a minor extra task “what does he think I am, like?” Yes, we were indeed the Celtic Tiger Cubs.

But sadly college is finished, the party is over and the boom, is well and truly over. So where has it gotten the slightly hung-over Celtic Tiger Cub generation. Today, we are escapees, re-inventors, dolers and victims to the generation of greed whom went before us.

I could not begin to count the amount of times I heard the line, “god ye don’t know how good ye have it, when I was your age…” The Celtic Tiger Cubs were made feel like they had not “paid their dues” in “life lessons,” they were made fell guilty for the lifestyle‘s they lead, by the very generation who gave them that lifestyle. This was the very generation of people who’s greed has brought the state to is knees!

This generation grew up long before the Celtic Tiger are now retired, if not on the verge of retiring, leaving behind the cubs to look after the mess, that is the banks, the IMF and whatever other little ‘trap’ this “wiser” generation have set for their young.

Today I find myself as many others do, I’m in hiding, back in education, like a hare down a hole waiting for the guy with the gun to move on, for fear I would get caught in the line of fire. Many more graduates such as myself are back in education, in an effort to re-invent themselves. Doing their best to  keep their heads down and arise again, more qualified, more mature and a little wiser in the one handed card game that is called “personal banking.” None of  us want to ‘fold!’

Unfortunately for many of us this game is a difficult one to play if your survival tactic is “re-invention.” Little did many of the graduates of recent years know, but to receive a grant to go back to education you must upgrading your qualification in the area you graduated in. Many found out this the hard way when they applied for different courses to what they were qualified in. These Cubs find themselves waiting tables by night to educate themselves during the day. Between work and college, these Cubs are putting in, roughly, 62- 64 hours per week!

The other option is emigration.  According to the statistics published in an article in The Irish Times, in April of 2010. I stated that 65,300 young Irish people emigrated since the start of the year, just short of the 5000 which was recorded in 1989, which saw Ireland’s unemployment rise to its worst, 18%. According to the latest figures of the world press.com it is believed that Ireland will lose 120,000 young people to emigration between 2010 and the end of 2011 breaking all records set by those in legging’s, frizzy hair and the tasteful scrunches of the 1980’s.

Thousands of other young, bright, Celtic Tiger Cubs have left our green shores. In search of a better life, better opportunities, better jobs, better standards of living, even better weather!

During a speech at the Dail in 1934, Eamon De Valera famously said -“no longer shall our children, like our cattle, be brought up for export.”- This, it could be said, held true for a period of about a decade in Ireland since that year.

I paid a visit to the Dublin’s new €400m terminal, to bid fair well to the 32nd friend to leave the country since we graduated. Yet again it was an emotional experience, we were not the only friends saying goodbye and we have not been the last either. They say the world is smaller these day’s with modern advances such as the internet. There is not a social network site invited yet, that can compensate for the absence of a loved one, nor will there ever be!

As I glanced around the impressive “Terminal B” I could see many more tears rolling down the cheeks of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and close friends of those who were weighed down with the 50lb baggage limit and the billions owed to the IMF.

Echo’s of “call me when ya get there… Facebook me when ya land… Skype me,” were being chanted though the glass and tile terminal.

Elmar Waters and Joanne Devlin, graduate’s in ID Nursing of Saint Angela’s College, Sligo,  left for Australia last June. Like the rest of their graduating year, they were unable to find work in Ireland which brought them to the land down under.

“Its so easy to find work here” says Elmar. “The week we arrived we thought we’d stay in a hostel in Sydney to see if we could get work first, within the week we both had nursing jobs and were renting a lovely house just outside the city a short walk from Bondi Beach, it was just soo easy!”

Joanne added, “we were nerves arriving first cause we had heard it was easy enough to get work but we never thought it would be this simple,” she went on to say, “the week we arrived we were a little frantic in our job hunt, we were firing our CV’s at anyone who would take them off us!” she laughed.

Elmar claimed, “Within a day or two of handing out CV’s the phone started going, and it just did not stop! There were places calling us not even to arrange interviews but just offering the job to us over the phone! well paid jobs, great working conditions and all. We thought it was friends from home pulling the piss with their best Ozzy accents, because after 12 months of looking for a job in Ireland and not even getting so much as a call, suddenly the phone was hopping asking us ‘when can you start?’ it was great!”

“We do have full intentions of returning home,” they claimed, “we will stay here as long as we can though, we would be stupid to return until we have to, here we have jobs, the sun, the sea, the sand what is waiting for us at home? Misery and misfortune, rain, wind and the dole queue. At least here we are earning, enjoying life and building up a better C.V for when we do return.”

The nurses added, “ the only time we missed home was Christmas day, it was our first Christmas away from home and it was a little hard, we also miss friends, but the strange thing is, if we wanted to meet up with them we wouldn’t go home but rather go to another part of Australia or anywhere else in the world but Ireland, nobody is there anymore.”

So, for now, this rare species, the ‘Celtic Tiger Cub,’ once familiar to Irish soil, find, that some have stayed and are in a state of hibernated and most have migrated in a bid for survival, finding ‘Ireland’s dark winter’ to be an inhospitable environment for them. But, when the sun rises again on these cold green shores, the Cub’s shall return, stronger then its predecessors and better fit for the seasons of its habitat, Ireland will once again hear the roar of it’s Celtic Tiger Cub’s.