Father's tears at Ireland's social services 'disgrace'

Schuhart

Yes, I am a cnut. But this story does sort of illustrate the way in which any kind of rational discussion of health service provision in the media gets drowned by an individual tragedy.

I don’t doubt anyone who lost a child and grandchildren in tragic circumstances would rail against everything. But is there really any need to pretend that every vaguely health related facility in the country has to operate on the basis that any minute now a suicidal person might come in?

Could any procedure have altered events here? If some edict was issued demanding that every private hospital and nursing home in the country have an out of hours suicide counselling number at their reception desk, its hardly doing much for the real issue of suicide prevention. So why is this story pasted across the front pages, other than to shout down any kind of rational approach to health service provision with sensational images? In truth, has this individual tragedy any relevance to the general issue of health service reform at all? Or, if it does, is it not more about what path a life takes leading up to calling into a private hospital at 7:30pm in search of a social worker?

Yet its reported as if the case has some general significance - simply because the image is arresting.

Before a packed inquest, Ely Hospital receptionist Marian Redmond recalled how she was working on the evening of April 16, 2005.

“A lady arrived at the desk at about 7.30pm with two small children. She asked to speak to a social worker. None was on duty. She asked for an emergency number and there was none. I said I would contact Wexford General for her, but she said it was okay. At about 8.10pm I saw the same woman walking on the opposite side of the road. She was carrying one child and the other was walking behind.”

lostexpectation

this was a hospital, nothing vague about it....

the women should have atleast tried to get her to sit and wait while she rang around for her....

Schuhart

lostexpectation wrote:

this was a hospital, nothing vague about it....

This is, of course, pretty much the kind of response the article is designed to evoke.

As I understand it, Ely Hospital essentially provides geriatric services. The idea that it needs to be set up to take any health related emergency that might come its way is pure bunkum. Looking on it another way, when was the last time someone called in to them on the way to the beach? How many have they had since?

Focussing on this aspect of the story actually draws attention away from where there might have been some breakdown in service provision. The question I would ask is if suicide was an issue, or should have been detected as an issue, before someone walked into the reception area of a geriatric hospital on a Saturday evening in search of a social worker.

But all that is sacrificed for a sensationalist image. We do need informed debate on health service provision. This article is not adding to it.

lostexpectation wrote:

the women should have atleast tried to get her to sit and wait while she rang around for her....

That seems to be what happened.

I said I would contact Wexford General for her, but she said it was okay.

Cork

There is a striking trend in the media to go for the human interest story.

• A+E - Some people who turn up - would be better off going to their GP. Th
• Road Safety - Personal Responsibility is never a fact ie. drink, drugs, fatigue etc.
• Poverty - many just wish to remain on welfare
• Crime - Often over hyped - you'd swear that there is a utopia somewhere with zero crime levels.

It never has to do - what people can do for themselves.

It is a victim culture that media likes to tap into.

I surpose news has gone tabloid and people like the ocasional fluff piece.