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GRIEVING THE LOSS of somebody close is like being unable to ever fully catch your breath. It is housing a well in the pit of your stomach of nausea and exhaustion, of tension and of pain. It is as indescribable as it is debilitating.
Grief is far more than just an emotional reaction. In many ways, when it is somebody integral to your life that you have lost, you’re not even capable of an emotional reaction – so enormous is the loss to be faced. So, instead, it manifests itself in a physical reaction. Coming to terms with a death is a huge challenge for anyone, and not one for which any of us are particularly well-prepared. It definitely takes its toll.
According to the Irish Hospice Foundation 44% of organisations report an increase in sick leave for employees after a bereavement. And why wouldn’t there be? The world as you knew it has, overnight, been turned upside down. Your lifelong support mechanism, your emotional safety net, be that of the parental or spousal or any other variety for that matter, has been abruptly snatched from under your nose.
So how do we typically react to this? These daunting feelings of emptiness. Pain. Fear of the unknown?
Simple.
We race back to work.
Run, rabbit, run. Run. Run. Run… fast as you can and don’t look back. Instinct takes over and the emotional shutters well and truly come down.
But here’s the thing about grief – you cannot outrun it.
You can avoid it. But by burying it, it just festers and seeps down further somewhere into our consciousness until it eventually rears its ugly toxic head, often years later, in some other physical or psychological form. This time with a much more indelible mark left behind on your life than had you been afforded the time and space to face up to it earlier.
Why no statutory entitlement for compassionate leave?
Given that our very natural and instinctive reaction is one of escape, denial, avoidance, it strikes me as a great misfortune that we don’t have any laws on this area that would actively encourage some time and space to allow us come to terms with the loss of a loved one. For some reason our social policy doesn’t encourage the bereaved to take time out to allow the enormity of what has just happened to sink in before we ‘Speedy Gonzalas’ our way back to work.
There is a statutory entitlement to ‘force majeure’ leave, which in times of urgent family crisis allows an employee to take up to three days paid leave from work per year. But this doesn’t cover the death of a close family member.
No, really. It doesn’t.
Mad? Yes. Surprising? No, not particularly. Clearly in our legislator’s eyes once they’re actually dead, there’s no particular reason why we shouldn’t be straight back to our desks.
I took 11 months’ maternity leave, four months’ parental leave, and one month off to get married. Oh, and five unscheduled days when my mother died. And it’s only now, many years later, that I am capable of seeing the absurdity in those particular statistics.
But nobody advises you of what’s the ‘norm’, there aren’t any laws dictating what period is sufficiently ‘compassionate’ and the very real ‘run rabbit run’ reaction militates towards people getting back to work sooner rather than later.
Nobody wants to be seen ‘milking it’. That would feel like the ultimate in disrespect to the person you have just lost. By definition, if you’ve just watched someone you love die you are at your most vulnerable; you are incapable of seeing the wood from the trees. So you are definitely in no fit state to gauge what is in your own best interests in the long run.
A recipe for disaster for all concerned
People wheel out vague, well-intended platitudes instructing you to ‘mind yourself’, right before delicately suggesting that you might want to getting back to ‘normal’ as soon as you can. So your instinct is to go back as soon as you can physically make it through the day. Because, rightly or wrongly, that is what is ‘expected’. And who can blame employers, when our laws don’t make any provision to the contrary?
People have often missed time in the run up to a bereavement to care for their loved ones, to deal with the stress and exhaustion that hospitals, and palliative care, and extended family, and saying the final goodbye entails. And once their love one is ‘safely dispatched’ to the other side, those left behind can feel obliged to get back to the day job and make up for lost time. Which can be a recipe for disaster for all concerned.
As a simple exercise I googled how long you should take off work when a parent dies. I got no definitive answers from any official sources. The closest I came across was an Irish Hospice Foundation survey of Irish employers indicating 3-5 days as being the norm. Worse still, any advice from blogs etc about seeking a longer period off work invariably involved a ‘visit to your GP’. Which by definition means that if you’re not ‘over it’ within the week, there is something wrong with you.
Many people’s work contracts cover it. Or their HR policies. Which brings the question right down to brass tacks and makes for difficult reading: one day for a grandparent, generously doubled when you come down a generation, etc etc. Cringe-worthy and painfully arbitrary, but any system of that nature, by definition, has to be. In many ways, it takes a brave employer to tackle the question. Tackling delicate issues is not something we Irish exactly excel at.
Future generations will surely look back aghast at our present attitudes
Generations to come will no doubt have a much better understanding about how our minds function and how stress, and bereavement in particular, impacts upon them, and how they subsequently function. And my own sense is that they will look back aghast at our present attitudes, where no time at all is devoted to coming to terms with a death, and moving on virtually immediately is expected.
One wonders will they take note of our spiralling rates of depression, alcoholism, obesity, cancer and perhaps put two and two together where we currently don’t. It may only be a small contributing factor, but it is a relevant one.
As the Government prepares to publish the Family Leave Bill this autumn, which consolidates our laws on maternity, adoptive, carers and possibly even paternity leave, perhaps they could consider being brave enough to tackle the enormous elephant in the room – the question of compassionate leave. For the sake of all those out there who openly admit that they never really took the time to deal with whatever loss they encountered, and wish they had. Whatever it might cost the exchequer in reimbursement to employers, it would doubtless recoup in spades on avoided sick leave further down the tracks.
Claire Micks is an occasional writer. Read her columns for TheJournal.ie here.
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“One such solution could be public ownership of the facility.”
How is this not the only possible solution. Here’s a 300 million euro hospital for 36 million piece of land?!
@john Appleseed: they’re completely out of touch/who cares what the common filth think/I AM THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH! *turns up nose*
@john Appleseed: State ownership should be the only solution. It is shocking that State ownership was not insisted upon from the outset. That should have been a non negotiable precondition and not within the scope of the Mediation.
@Tony Daly: so that the abortions on demand you favour can kill babies in the new NMH.
Annoying isn’t it, when people oppose your abortion on demand NMH agenda…
They’re building the Children’s Hospital in D8, in a cramped and totally unsuitable site and want to build the new maternity hospital on the other side of the city and not own it.
The two should be built together (that this is not happening is still incredible to me – mums have babies – sick babies need a children’s hospital – sigh) on an adequate site with adequate traffic access and parking – 100% owned by the State and taxpayer.
Perhaps this month of ‘reflection’ could be an opportunity to row back on two stupid decisions instead of one.
@Sinead Mooney: Well said Sinead I agree both hospitals should be built beside each other
@Sinead Mooney: what you say makes sense but the medical consultants are head over heels in favour of the St Vincent’s Location. It is convenient, suits their private practices, is closer to their homes, facilitates an easier combination of public and private practice, better parking for Consultants and proximate to Elm Park Golf Club.
@Tony Daly: that’s not true. Co-locating means access to a high level of recourses, facilities and most importantly expertise. It leads to better outcomes.
they are arguing for co-location, but on a different site with the new childrens hospital. Dont let your agenda get in the way now.
@Tony Daly: Spurious waffle where you call peoples’ professional and personal character into question without a shred of evidence to back up your claims. The desire to have the new NMH on the same site as an acute, teaching adult hospital is widely accepted by consultants as best practice, regardless of where they sit on the ownership issue.
@RG Law: access to an acute hospital is necessary.
What was needed was a new and accessible complex comprising an acute hospital, a childrens’ hospital and a National Maternity Hospital, all in State ownership.
It would be silly to deny the human factor of what is personally beneficial to the Consultants. Some of the Consultants in the NMH already have practices in St Vincent’s.
@Sinead Mooney: Spot on Sinead and an obvious proposal when you remove all of the vested interests but unfortunately our glove puppet minister has too many hands up his aras.
@Tony Daly: the Coombe is being co-located with James’s and the Children’s hospital. Are you suggesting amalgamation of Coombe and Holles Steeet to James’s site?
@Paul Fahey: you know that’s where the Coombe is moving yeh?
@Sinead Mooney: anyone interested in actually reading up in the maternity plans? The Coombe is moving to James’s.
@Thomas McGilly: the human factor plays a large role in these matters.
The onjective is to have a State owned NMH. Vincent’s is the expedient location but only if State ownership is secured.
@Sinead Mooney: couldn’t agree more but…common sense is not in abundance in Dáil Éireann
@Tony Daly: You presented it as a fact that these “human factors” played a part in the decision to locate the NMH on the grounds of St Vincent’s. Do you have evidence thst they did? If not, you have no right to call peoples’ integrity into question. If you do, you should present the evidence.
@RG Law: you know there are other sites, you know more appropriate and accommodating to the rest of the country, yeh? Odd that the James’s site was deemed inappropriate for the NMH, but fine for the children’s hospital and a different maternity unit, odd that, but like you agendas are at play.
@Paul Fahey: eh .. you have absolutely no interest in informing yourself about the maternity strategy, about the current services and how we should be looking to looking ahead in the provision of services. This is a joke … a sick political joke on women and babies in 2017
@RG Law: and that provision means handing the main hospital over to the nuns, no thanks, reverse reverse reverse.
@Paul Fahey: it’s not being handed over to them.
@Paul Fahey: Maternity unit v maternity hospital.
@RG Law: it’s not being handed over to them, ok I stand corrected, it is being given to them.
@Sinead Mooney: I think Iarnrod Eireann’s Inchicore works, a huge area, with old unused buildings, would make a perfect site for both hospitals. It already has a train mainline train service, the Luas is very close by, served adequately with bus’s, and has oodles of room for parking. And on top of all that, the property is state owned, so no obligation to any religious order. Now why couldn’t both of these hospital committees, filled with intellects think of that
He needs to come out from behind Enda’s all conquering flower pot and open himself up to scrutiny on this matter, but I suspect he is all too well aware they were trying to sell the public an ecumenical pup.
Ah yeah, why not. I think I’ll go into work tomorrow and ask for another month to decide on how to do what should have been done yesterday, see how it goes.
What a f-up,can this government do anything right
@dick dastardly: specifically re Harris recently, Orkambi deal was very good.
@Michael Doyle: Shush Michael. You’re not allowed on here unless you’re hysterical, outraged and offended!
In fairness, he asked for some time on Orkambi and got a very good deal. Reported everywhere when it was a problem, but hardly reported once a good future-proofed deal was done.
@Michael Doyle: Did I miss something? How do we know that Harris didn’t get a terrible deal on Orkambi where we will end up paying extortionate fees?
I support a deal on Orkambi but to say it was a “very good deal” seems bizarre when we don’t know if we’re being ripped off or not – remember the HSE described €160k per patient per year as “exorbitant” – so how much did he knock Vertex down in the end?
@Malachi: the details have not been published much, but to those on the inside, it seems this was possibly the only deal brokered that was future proofed to cover later improvements to the drug within the same deal. Among health professionals this is regarded as a very good result.
@Michael Doyle: “have not been published much”
They haven’t been published at all.
If it’s true that the deal is future proofed, I’m glad, but I still want to know if there actually was a significant reduction in the outrageous quote given by Vertex initially. It seems very premature to call it a “very good deal” when we actually haven’t got a clue what’s in it.
The Orkambi deal is irrelevant to the control and ownership of the National Maternity Hospital. Raising this issue at all is simply a pure distraction.
Look over there at Orkambi! Look, look.
@Tony Daly: the relevance is that Harris has form in asking for time to get a better deal, and actually getting the better deal. I would have more faith in Harris to manage this than eg. Mary Lou who said that it should be done ‘at any cost’ which comes across as incredibly immature negotiation.
@Michael Doyle: ahh, I see. You are taking a major public issue and converting into a party political squabble between third rate politicians huckstering for political edge. That’s not of any interest to me.
That’s just you trying to score political points off the back of an issue which is vastly more important than petty and unworthy party politics between political hucksters on the make.
@Tony Daly: you are probably deliberately misreading, so this is probably pointless.
This is a negotiation. I would rather have it led by someone who needs time to resolve it than by someone who just wants to throw as much of MY tax as it takes to make the problem go away. Maybe because FG aren’t used to receiving billions in subsections from the UK every year in order to balance the books, they recognise the importance of negotiating a financially acceptable deal.
All I am saying is beware of people who think there are always simple solutions to complex problems – they are just playing to the simple audience.
@Michael Doyle: no, you are just playing party politics. Forget about Orkambi.
Giving a more than €300million to a religious order is a really bad deal for tax payers.
It is better to pay for the site and have the NMH owned by the State outright.
@Tony Daly: spot on Tony
@Malachi: if you had a loved one in need of orkambi I reckon you would not give a damn in hell what it cost!
@Mary Lyons: it is a separate issue. Orkambi is not prescribed in Maternity hospitals. It is not germane to the location or ownership of the NMH.
Harris should resign dealing with any group that enabled the exploitation children
is a crime
@yildun: he should go back and finish off that photography class or whatever he was doing before he became minister of HEALTH…
@yildun: Too right Yildun. In fact, seeing as the State was the key enabler in all this, every member of society should denounce their citizenship and start again.
@Willie the kid: send this Harris kid back to college to finish his education. He is TOTALLY out of his depth in the adult world.
@Thomas McGilly: It is called a new Grundnorm as proposed by Hans Kelsen where civil disobedience leads to a new legitimate legal order and something we must consider.
@yildun: oh right, you mean like organisations that “enable the exploitation of children” by encouraging or “enable” or promote, aborting them to death in the womb (Amnesty, IFPA, UN, Sinn Fein, aaa-pfp, Labour etc)
Nuns don’t do that, actually. They defend unborn life against abortion pushers. They built our health from nothing, without pay, for Irish people, when the State would not.
I’m feeling a little more optimistic. Justified public outrage has caused a Pen ownership and control debacle to turn into a political debacle.
Kieran Mulvey was brought in to mediate on an issue which should not have been a subject of compromise from an ownership and control perspective.
The NMH should and must be a State asset in State ownership, State funded, State controlled and accessible to all patients. It should be run on sound clinical considerations free of the confusion and distraction of religious dogma.
Hey,
No there’s a deadline in place. We should be glad. Government departments don’t get “deadlines” or urgency or costs etc.
Simon, you put a “super negotiator” in place and he failed and in the meantime the costs go up and up.
It’s going to take you and your department a whole month to re hash what you should have done at the start. Just shut up, stop the sound bites and just get the job done…. please!
@Martin Stapleton: He didn’t fail, he just didn’t get a deal that a very vocal section of the public wanted. Mulvey’s remit was to get a good deal in a hugely complex piece of negotiations for a vital piece of public infrastructure which would inevitability have to be situated in private land, not to cater for every expert who gives an opinion on Facebook or the Journal.
@Thomas McGilly: He did fail because he was not astute enough to realise that this was not a deal but a sellout.
@Paul Lane: What could Mulvey have done better?
@Thomas McGilly: Stayed at home
@Paul Lane: Constructive and insightful.
@Thomas McGilly: it was the failure to confront the ownership issue which caused the fiasco. Fix the ownership issue.
@Tony Daly: Easily done. Procure a site elsewhere or enter into discussions with the Sisters of Charity to buy the land. CPO could take years and deny our women and infants a critically needed facility.
@Thomas McGilly: So you’re the only expert who can give an opinion. Good to know that.
@Thomas McGilly: I disagree on the CPO delay point. The payment of compensation coul take many years if the Sisters are unreasonable.
The sensible thing to do is to enter into immediate discussions in the context if the Charitable Trust to acquire the site at OMV on a volunitary basis. If the Sisters refuse to deal, CPO the site and take possession of it.
Pary VIII of the Health Act 1947 as amended by Section 40 of the Health Act 1970 allows the HSE to CPO the site under a clean CPO process which has explicit back of Article 44 of the Constitution.
Either the religious order plays ball or it has the ball taken off it. Get tough.
The Sisters of Charity should not be allowed to hold future Maternity healthcare to ransom over this issue.
The sisters ARE unreasonable. The mere fact that they negotiated to get a free hospital to add to their portfolio shows they have no interest in patient wellbeing, only money.
@Tony Daly: The CPO issue was further complicated by the land in question being used as collateral in an as yet unpaid loan. Further, despite all of the points you made above relating to the Constitution, this is not clear cut. The above articles are tied to subsequent legal interpretations, provisions and conditions. It is not as straightforward as you would like. Further, the Sisters of Charity have given the land over for development at no financial cost. They are not the ones holding the NMH to ransom. The ones using it as a political football are.
@Thomas McGilly: er.. abortion denies them their life. Important, don’t u think ?
Does it take a month to resign minister?The chairman of the new board will be elected by 2 members of st Vincent’s and only 1 member of hollis street thus giving the sisters of charity the controlling vote on the new board and ensuring that the catholic ethos will remain in place. Why can people not understand this obvious fact and that we have been stitched up again by FG just like with Irish water which was due to be privatised and this is another example of governmental ineptitude
@Paul Lane: have you actually read Mulvey’s report?
@Sean @114: Do you deny that the selection process for the chair is a 2 to 1 process in favour of the nuns thus giving them a 5 to 4 overall majority on the board of nine?
@Paul Lane: the state will have Golden Share and reserved powers. That’s a done deal. The minister of the day will have final say in relation to any contentious issue that may come before the board. Unless Diarmuid Martin runs and is elected in the next GE AND is landed in the cabinet with the health portfolio, you can rest at ease, honestly.
@Sean @114: Sean, the people on here know more about the law and maternity care than Nicholas Kearns, Kieran Mulvey and Rhona Mahony. I don’t get why the State didn’t just go on to the Journal to ascertain how best to proceed on this issue.
@Sean @114: There is no such think as a golden share in Irish company law, it simply does not exist and as an example what happened to our golden share in aer lingus? Read the Company’s Act of 2014
@Thomas McGilly: sadly short term expediency can trump the real issues in an over anxiety to secure a particular location.
The focus now should be on resolving the ownership issue which should have been resolved at the start.
@Paul Lane: yet here it is in black n white on the Irish Corp Law website and I think I read somewhere that the EU were trying regulate against it. Sounds like you know more about it Paul and should probably put your services forward for Dept of Enterprise and Employment.
http://www.corplaw.ie/blog/bid/378815/What-Is-A-Golden-Share
@Thomas McGilly: I would safely say the readers of the Journal know more about maternity care than Simon Harris.
@Thomas McGilly: a woman referred for tubal ligation to St Vincent’s was turned away because it’s not performed there due to the Catholic ethos of the hospital. These are the same people that would be running our national maternity hospital! I just have no faith their ethos would not interfere with healthcare for Irish women.
@Deborah Behan: One person, one issue does not render any institution incapable of running a service. If it did, no entity in the country would be allowed to provide a service, especially the State.
@Just Me: Nowhere did I mention Simon Harris. I mentioned a former President of the High Court, the Chairperson of the LRC and the Master of the National Maternity Hospital. I was stating that the legal, medical and mediation gurus of the Journal know more about the issues than these plebs.
@Tony Daly: Tony, I don’t know anything about your family but I’ll fill you in a a story of mine. My youngest was born in Holles St ten years ago. The place was in a deplorable state then. Ten years on, we still expect our women to give birth to our children in these Victorian conditions while we ignore clinical best practice, the recommendations of a former High Court President and the Master of Holles St, allow hypocritical politicians to play football with this issue and allow hysteria and misinformation to delay and possibly kill this project.
Simon Harris thought he had this deal in the bag now he is backing tracking another big Phil. He must now realise he has no chance to lead this party at any time he will end up at the back door in Europe for the down and out
“Bull” McCabe: He’s learned the lesson of the land.
How much more worse can this fiasco get?! Everything this inept Harris clown touches turns into shambles just like his fellow FG TDs. Keep up the “good” work you do, Simple Simon!
@John Flanagan: public outrage has halted the attempt to transfer the intended new NMH to the ownership of the Sisters of Charity. A new deal can now be worked out.
Let the NMH be owned by the State.
@Tony Daly: … so that babies can be aborted to death on demand, and their mothers often hugely psychologically damaged — in a marvellous HSE State run abortion mill facility.
It’s simply nuts. UP has already detailed in a previous Facebook posts, just how ridiculous and devious are the current ongoing agreed antics, stacking the hospital board and more – now the Fine Gael government is attempting to go to a new level of craziness.
Despite 100,000 people in five days alone, signing their total objection to the gifting of a €300+ million hospital to a religious org, Simon Harris is calling for the public to give him time – so that he can STILL give the hospital to the religious org!
…But as said, the craziness even gets worse.
Now the Fine Gael party is floating the mad notion that not only does the modern state go backward with the gifting to the nuns – but that the nuns then will hospital lease their ‘gift’ back to the state – so that it has to pay more money to the nuns – that the state owned in the first place!
.
The state is to seek ownership in a hospital that it already would own, staffed and equipped at great financial cost – before it gifts it away – so it can then be charged even more money for ever, after trying to get it back… (That’s the public purse paying)
You simply couldn’t make this craziness up!
Many suggest that either the nuns do what’s right (for once) or Fine Gael do what’s right.
(A) The nuns give the land back to the state before a CPO is chased – by agreeing that the state take on any present loans tied to the land (the state had previously gifted to the land to them too, by the way) and back total out of the fiasco. So far the nation has seen bugger all charity from them – only complete greed and serious devious antics.
(b) The state instead, does obtain a CPO. Take the land (back!), give one final payment to the nuns – thus allowing them to pay off their loans and maybe even make a profit – then finally get on with building the hospital.
Regardless (but not to be discounted) of the topic of religious interference or not, the fact that we, the state, the people, are giving a €300+ Million Euro asset to anyone – especially when it is still acting board stacking devious (being ignored by FG and media, unwilling to deal with the issue) – as a gift for land that we had already owned, is just pure madness. Sadly, as we now discover, Fine Gael is determined to heap more madness upon already self-made madness.
.
…And all to the cost of the public who will end paying yet again. You can be sure Fine Gael and Co won’t be paying a cent!
Ffs he doesn’t even look old enough to be wearing long pants and Enda has left him out there dangling on a piece of string
@Marie Gunbay: So because he’s young, he’s not up to the job? He got a very good deal on Orkambi. Was that despite his age??
@Thomas McGilly: lol would people quit judging the orkambi deal as “very good” before there’s been a single letter of it released to the public? Honestly.
@Malachi: Why do the public get to judge on a commercial deal involving a very complex piece of medication to treat a complex illness? Are we that awash with experts in these fields among the general public?
@Thomas McGilly: What? You were the one just judging the deal as “very good”….???
@Malachi: I’m going by the commentary I’ve observed from people in the field.
Time to also demand that the NMH gets an independent board of directors and removes all the priests that are in it today.
The objective is to have the new NMH opened and controlled by the State, to secure to the taxpayers who will be paying at least €300million, likely much more for the construction and fit out of this intended 21st century facility.
Although the original site was obtained with the benefit of donations from Irish people, it is subject to the Terms of a Charitable Trust. That Trust needs to be revised and a legal mechanism worked out which enables ownership to be transferred to the State, likely in return for payment of open market value for the site. That cost has not been budgeted for but it now needs to be included in the project cost.
One mechanism, which would not delay construction, is for a put option now to be agreed enabling the State within the next 5 years to put an agreed price to the Trustees who must then sell. If the site is charged, that can be addressed by way of redemption or part redemption of the mortgage.
The mechanism for transfer of ownership can be by transfer of the site or the granting of a long lease with no restrictive covenants. That is a matter of mere optics and mechanics. It is not challenging to work out.
There are real solutions. The 25 page document was a mere fudge, a sleight of hand, which failed to sucker the public.
@Tony Daly: Interesting. I’m sure that you meant ‘Call Option’ though.
Watching Harris pleading for another month to get it right, is like watching someone trying to unscramble an egg, clearly out of his depth, mishandled the thing from the start, outmanovered at every turn, now playing catch up.
A May deadline ? I won’t hold my breath that’s for sure !!!!
So if they don’t deliver this hospital for Pope Francis, what are they going to give him when he comes to visit?
And him with a big cheque for 1.3 billion to hand over. We’d better give him something, maybe he’d like another referendum?
@John Mulligan: interesting you say that. There have been Submissions that the MHH would be named after Pope Francis although I suspect he would find that unduly craven.
@Tony Daly: i think the Leon Trotsky Institute has a nice ring to it.
@Sean @114: not really but I also would not like “Sisters of Charity are doing it fir themselves”.
The ownership issue can be quickly and sensibly resolved unless the Religious Sisters of Charity decide to be obdurate.
@Tony Daly: TBH Tony, contrary to aggressive secular belief, I should imagine, I wouldn’t say the vast majority of them give a fiddlers. It’s not like they actively sought this facility and they’re not going to benefit from the sale of it at any point realistically now are they? So better to delay the project and spend millions more of taxpayers money trying to fudge a land deed to appease the secularists. Bizarre.
This is what happens when you send a boy to do a man’s job. How did this pubescent child end up with a ministry in the first place?
It seems the biggest concern for the noisy media PC liberal anti catholic brigade when it comes to the new maternity Hospital is the scary thought of perhaps not been able to kill unborn babies in it.
@Stephen: the religious zealot sees everything through the prism of religious privilege.
Religion and the NMH should be kept separate and distinct.
Religion mixes very badly with medicine, law, politics and health administration.
The NMH should not be ownered by any religion.
@Stephen: well first the concern was ‘control’ by the SOC with their Roman Catholic ‘dogma’. When it was pointed out to the outraged that control by the state would be guaranteed as outlined in section 2.3.2 in the report, the outraged turned their attention to abortion. The cherry on top of course was Sinn Fein and their sudden concern on human rights issues. I mean really, when the SOC were running laundries what were the shinners doing at the time? The outcome is that the outraged who claim to be so concerned with women’s welfare have now succeeded in delaying the delivery of world class health services to those women, all for the sake of what amounts to a balance sheet entry on a religious group’s accounts, a group who founded and have been running Vincents for two centuries.
@Sean @114: the control mechanisms in the Report are inadequate to secure absolute State control. Ownership and control end up aligning.
The NMH should be a State asset in State ownership as the State is funding most of the cost.
@Tony Daly: not true. It will have complete operational independence. Golden share and mastership are guaranteed. I agree that the state should own the hospital but not for the reasons put forward by the outraged. It just simply makes sense for state funded facilities to be owned/part owned by the state. However to follow this through the state must acquire all assets not currently on it’s books, massive cost to the taxpayer. NMH should go ahead immediately with a CVA to allow for state acquisition over a finite time period. Therefore no delays and women’s health remains priority instead of a pawn used by the outraged to force an anti-religious agenda.
The Report, 25 pages, is just a fudge@Sean @114:
The core issue is not dislike of religion although religion has attracted understandable opprobrium because of some truly awful scandals.
It is critically important that the State does not pay over €300 million on developing a State asset which the State does not own and not have absolute control over.
@Tony Daly: you can’t say that the report is a ‘fudge’ when the boards of both hospitals have voted on the back of it and it will be the foundation of the legal framework with clinical independence as the cornerstone. Calling it a ‘fudge’ is just a charge with absolutely no substance. It’s pure scare mongering. Would you like to see Mary Lou or any Sinn Fein member on the board of the new NMH? I ask because they are leading the charge in political circles. And let’s not pretend that your objections are anything other than anti-religion motivated Tony.
@Sean @114: it was a way of glossing over a dilemma, instead of confronting the elephant in the room, the question of ownership by the State of a State funded assets. Short term expediency is often the worst possible approach.
The NMH and the Saint Vincent’s Hospital Group were so so focused on their respective short term interests that they skated over the ownership issue.
Ownership was fundamental and that should have been the first issue to sort out.
Fortunately, it looks like there is a belated political realisation that this was a total debacle so far as ownership is concerned. Now, that issuecwill be confronted and a sensible deal worked out.
The mess was caught just in time, courtesy of Peter Boylan.
Now the focus can turn to a pragmatic solution and an end to the recrimination. That involves sorting out the ownership issue first.
@Sean @114: I suggest leaving party politics and religious devotion or loyalty out of this. The focus needs to be on a solution and the solution requires ownership to be confronted. That is now the focus.
@Tony Daly: well firstly the ownership issue was a fait accompli. There was no need to debate it as it was a natural consequence of siting the hospital there. If the outraged were so outraged by the ownership issue then the superb facility that is SVHG would have come under the spotlight a long time ago. The concern here should always have been operational independence and that has been addressed. The asset matter is just being used now by the lefties to continue their general attack on religious bodies. You cannot debate a political matter without talking politics. Where do you stand on SF’s input on this matter and would you support a SF member on the board? Simple question.
@Sean @114: ownership can changed. The public interest can and should prevail over private ownership rights.
@Tony Daly: and who do you think would have to vote to agree a sale? Yes the board, and only consent from the state would see any proposed sale. So really where is the foundation for all of this faux outrage? It’s clearly anti-religion motivated by the likes of SF (we know they’re champions of human rights) and Labour (I swear it was nothing to do with us) and their cheerleaders. It’s effectively a state asset in that it will never change hands and even if it did the state would have to sanction that.
@Stephen: nuns and religious defend babies and mothers against abortion. Thats why the anti 8th pro abortion media mob don’t want them.
Vote pro abortion politicians out. Boycott pro abortion media and journalists.
The courageous Catholic church are magnificent in their defence of unborn life against the fashionable, anti catholic secular pro abortion bigots.
Support them, and all who oppose the secular abortion pushers.
@Tony Daly: Intolerant aggressive secularism is the new State religion.
Aborting innocent babies to death “on demand” is a principal tenet, with anti Catholic bigotry obligatory.
RTE, Irish Times, media generally is its main pulpit.
The first option should be a resignation letter from the inexperienced boy Harris
for sleeping on the job, wanting to gift 300 million euro’s of state money
to 200 aprox Sisters of Charity ( avarage age 76 ) who I am pretty sure will not avail of the services of the new NMH.
Time to get a new Minister of Health that looks after the health of Women in Ireland
as a priority without the distraction of religious dogma.
Religion mixes very badly with medicine, law, politics and health administration as we all know from our sad history to date with the Catholic Church
@Johnny Merren: I think your third paragraph says everything that needs to be said. In fairness to Harris the damage was done long before this boy arrived on the scene. James Reilly announced this project 4 years ago and was backed by Alex White and Kathleen Lynch of the Labour Party. Yes, can you believe it, the Labour Party…who are now expressing outrage, you know because it’s hip to do that now even if you are seen as a blatant hypocrite. Varadakar also had his hands on it, he a marriage equality advocate and seeming free liberal thinker, yet he championed the cause. All of this of course was initiated on the back of the 2008 KPMG report recommendations. Almost a decade gone and not a sod turned.
@Johnny Merren: the Catholic Church opposes aborting babies to death.
Abortion “mixes badly” with babies and their mothers — it kills them, physically and psychologically.
@Johnny Merren: So, are u OK with aborting female babies to death, then ? Is this whats called “looking after the women of ireland ” ?
@Mick Rick Jones:
Don’t remember saying anything about abortion in my previous comment above.so maybe you should read it again.
I did make the comment that
“religion mixes very badly with medicine, law, politics and health administration in Ireland as we all know from our sad history to date with the Catholic Church.
Do you agree with this comment ?
We really have no interest in learning from the intolerance of the religious in the past.
We’d rather punish today’s women and children. The aggressive secular is as bad as the aggressive religious. If you don’t laugh you’ll cry.
@RG Law: you are right. Unborn babies are poisoned, cut, dismembered and dumped by abortionists. Their abortive mothers often suffer years of loss, pain, regret.
Keep intolerant, aggressive, ideological abortion pushers out of our hospitals and schools..
There are a lot of vested interests involved in this complex project . Ironically the ordinary nuns who have done all the hard work for no pay , their unpaid labour has contributed to the development of The SVHG we see today as a centre of excellence .
The ordinary nuns (as distinct from the Order ) have very little possessions , have no money and do not own any property and most of them work as long as they are physically able .
Yet they are the people who are been demonised and blamed for the inexcusable cruelty of nuns of a different ERA.
If everyone lay or religious were held accountable for the sins of the past , there would not be many left standing .
@Aine O Connor: ahhh the poor, poor nuns who voluntarily took a vow of poverty.
@Tony Daly:
Sneering is very unchristian of you .
@Aine O Connor: the gas thing is, Tony or a close relative have probably benefited from their services in an A&E or somewhere at some point. I’d take Vincents in its current form over many of the state run facilities at the moment TBH.
@Sean @114:
Eaten bread is soon forgotten.
@Aine O Connor: you are right. The nuns selflessly built our services, without pay, for their community.
the abortion pushers attacking them favour aborting babies to death in our hospitals TODAY — some high moral ground, eh?
We will wait a long time before we EVER see our pro abortion journalists, editors, Labour, Sinn Fein, or AAA-PFP pro aborts hand over one cent of THEIR personal or party wealth, salaries, political pensions, houses or property, for the poor of Ireland, as the nuns and religious did, and do.
The goverment of kick the can down the road, if enough rubbish gathers, you forget where it came from.
It’s incredible that the government actually thought this was going to be ok. How out of touch are they?
I’ll give you a month to resign. Incompetent fool handing over state assets to religious organisations!!
The Field
Enda don’t send a child send Hogan (BULL)
He is a useless and pathetic excuse for a minister.
have your say