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Welcome to the third issue of The Week in Medicine – a round-up of all the happenings in the world of Irish medicine every week.
We’d like to express special birthday wishes for Finn O’Shea – a ten-year-old from Clonmel who celebrated his birthday on April 22. Finn was born with underdeveloped kidneys and he underwent a kidney transplant last year – which brought to an end his ‘lifetime of sickness’ and the final two years of nightly dialysis treatment.
Finn was up in Dublin to raise awareness of organ transplantation and the enormous benefits it can bring to patients. Finn’s mother Lisa thanked An Post for being supportive of the family’s efforts to look after Finn and she said: “Finn’s post-recovery post-transplant has been remarkable and he can now enjoy a normal childhood. It’s impossible to express our immense gratitude to the family of his deceased donor for their profound gift to ours.”
Finn’s father Eoin works as a postman for An Post – who provided him with time off to care for his son, and are now supporting this wider effort to improve organ donation. Also taking part was Andy Kavanagh – a post clerk at the GPO who received the ‘Gift of Life’ twice – firstly a heart transplant 36 years ago, and then 26 years later, a kidney transplant. Andy is the longest-surviving successful heart transplant in Ireland which he received in 1986.
Organ transplantation has been giving life to patients for decades, and also delivering laughs. Masai Graham won the best joke at the Ediburgh Comedy Festival in 2016 for his joke: “My Dad has suggested that I register for an organ donor card. He’s a man after my own heart.”
Another zinger from that year was: “Why is it that old people say ‘there’s no place like home’, but when you put them in one…”
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The ever-tireless Dr Jerry Cowley will be featured as part of the last episode of Curamoiri tonight at 7.30 on TG4. The episode features the Mayo village of Mulranny and shows the people coming together to ensure the future of the local care facility. St Brendan’s Village in Mulranny provides a continuum of support – including the high level of care available in the St Brendan’s High Support Unit.
The series Curamoiri, I am told, ‘delves into the heart of Irish society, showcasing the intricate tapestry of care provided by family carers, professional carers and dedicated organizations’. This is the type of public broadcasting that people would be happy to pay a licence fee to ensure, but why then does the series not have English subtitles on its player?
TG4 is in many ways what the rest of national Irish broadcasting should be, but no matter what your position is on the Irish language, the ‘cupla focail’ and all that, to produce a programme in Irish and then to make it available in Irish, but not in English, is a colossal waste of time.
I have never been on the TG4 streaming service previously, so I wouldn’t have come across this had I not been looking for Jerry Cowley’s appearance on the show, and I can certainly see the need and value of a TV programme in Irish, but cad e an point if there are no subtitles?
Is the lack of sub-titles just oversight, or is it just carelessness or cost-saving? I’d be interested to know, since I can imagine that many people would learn Irish by listening to TV and reading subtitles. Then, perhaps, documentaries on nursing homes in the west of Ireland are rarely big volume sellers on the TV market.
Maybe we should ask Dee Forbes? People say that she is too unwell to answer questions, and while that might seem odd, it is, after all, only an honest assessment of a disease that has haunted politicians, businessmen, and big wigs of all persuasions when hounded for answers by committees or journalists.
“I can’t answer your questions because I am sick,” a patriarch of Dublin business once told me, “sick of the lot of you journalists.”
But seriously, we can never joke about illness, unless someone turns illness into a joke. There are rules.
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A new report on the mental health of LGBTQI people will demonstrate that it has ‘significantly deteriorated’ over the past eight years. The report will be launched on Thursday morning at the Mansion House in Dublin by broadcaster Brendan Courtney at 10.45 a.m. The study – ‘Being LGBTQI+ in Ireland’ is a follow-on from the first comprehensive report on the mental health of the LGBTQI+ community, which was published in 2016. The new report builds on the findings of that original, and includes a comparative analysis.
2016 seems like another world at this point. You could possibly be suspended from a social media account for an off-colour joke, a misunderstood text or even name-calling. Now, with the level of venom and hatred spewing from every click, 2016 seems almost quaint – a quiet tea-room of politeness, compared to the broken-bottle barroom of today’s social media.
We will see on Thursday what has been the story for LGBTQI+ people in terms of their mental health over the last eight years. IMT, I am told, will have a full report in Friday’s Newsletter.