Tweets and trolleys
A FEW weeks back this column suggested that employing 74 people in PR and communications in the Health Service in Northern Ireland was perhaps a trifle excessive and maybe not the most efficient use of scarce resources.
This earned me a stiff rebuke from Jeanie Johnston, the head of Communications with the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust who seems to have been somewhat put out that someone should have had the audacity to question how her particular corner of the public sector conducts itself with taxpayers' money. Disappointingly, she sidestepped some of the more pertinent points or specific questions I posed.
Maybe us little people should just learn to stay in our place and stop asking awkward questions of our public sector masters and betters as to how our money is being spent and the priorities of the Health Service?
I have been seeking substantiation on some of the sharper edged assertions made in Ms Johnston's response. So far with little success. I was not necessarily intending to return to this subject in print, and certainly not so quickly, but something else happened recently that makes it hard not to.
Ms Johnston wrote: "But what annoyed me most was the assertion that recently we have seen filthy infection-infested hospitals, patients on trolleys etc", and she stated that such criticism is "so often wide of the mark, it is laughable."
Which begs the question: is it the view of the organisation she speaks for, that infections and cleanliness have not been important issues for hospitals in Northern Ireland? I asked this of SEHSC Trusts' chairman Colm McKenna, who replied: "…this Trust would not consider it necessary to substantiate any of the assertions or opinions proffered (by its head of Communications]." Honestly, I am not making this stuff up.
The NI Department of Health does not seem to think that the killer Clostridium difficile infection is such an inconsequential matter and has established an official inquiry into the problem. One of the goals of the inquiry will be to determine how many people died of the infection in Northern Ireland's hospitals. I have found reports of at least 16 deaths. Incidentally the inquiry has appointed an independent PR consultant. Make of that what you will.
Neither are the reports of the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority to be laughed at. In June 2009 the authority said: "Hospital Hygiene inspections highlight room for improvement", and last November the authority said that the "cleaning of wards" was still a challenge.
How can it be that we have an inquiry into infections (that has not yet reported) and a quango to tackle hospital cleanliness that highlights on-going challenges, but that the head of Communications at a health Trust dismisses media comment and criticism on the subject as sometimes "wide of the mark" and "laughable"?
I do not think it is wide of the mark to highlight the recent death of my uncle Desmond who went to hospital with severe stomach pains and spent 12 hours on a trolley before being packaged off to another hospital for treatment. He died two days later. My aunt Helen believes that had Desmond been treated sooner he might not have died. At the very least he should have been spared the indignity. At no time did anyone have a word of criticism of the medical staff, but clearly something is not right in the way the health service is being run and the way resources are being allocated.
Ms Johnston in her response wrote: "Our service users have a right to this information in whatever format they want it, be it a leaflet or a tweet." By "service users" I think she means people. I would have thought the right to a bed and treatment when you are seriously ill might be a higher priority. I do not want a tweet every hour my relative is left on a trolley in pain, I want a hospital bed.
Pop in to pop-up art space
EVERY cloud has a silver lining: one upside to all the shops and commercial property that is lying empty is the return of the temporary art gallery.
It really is a win-win situation; rather than have property lying empty looking abandoned and ugly, property managers allow artists to take over the space to show and sell their work. And there is a certain pleasure to be had in stumbling across such a gallery that you just do not get in visiting one you know will be still there in a month's time.
The latest such transitory venture is "Pop-Up Showcase" on the Lisburn Road in Belfast (opposite the police station), which is showing a beautiful collection of vibrant abstracts by the up-and-coming local artist Emma Berkery. The gallery is only open for another two weeks.
Hopefully more landlords and estate agents will have the imagination to put empty property to creative use.
Who would have thought it!
NEW research from insurance company Admiral has concluded that teenage drivers are more likely to have an accident than more experienced drivers.
Sue Longthorn, the company's managing director, announced: ''Sadly, newly-qualified motorists aged 17 and 18 are far more likely to be involved in a serious accident than more mature drivers."
Other recent research has shown that Popes tend to be Roman Catholics (though it is believed that Harriet Harman is currently drafting legislation to tackle this blatant religious inequality).
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Weather for Belfast
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
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Temperature: 12 C to 23 C
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Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 22 C
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