Brian Lenihan - Illness and Career

CDfm

Seeing some less than flattering things posted on another forum earlier surprised me.

BL as Finance Minister has tackled difficult issues since he has been appointed and seems to have borne his illness stoically and done quite a good job.

Could I do the same -probably not. I was surprised with the story but also surprised that it was leaked as you would expect medical issues to be fairly secure. The only reason I can see for its leak was political by someone in the Health Service.

So my questions are.

Is he as a guy is it admirable that he has manned up like he has and is it the right thing to do.

Would his illness be treated differently if he were a woman.

Should he have expected his medical information to be kept private and will its disclosure affect his personnal and professional life.

Other people in senior life can maintain pretence about their sexual orientation etc without a problem.Why not health.

GrahamThomas

I agree with most of your points.

Minister Lenihan should have been allowed to make his illness publicly known on his own terms. Perhaps he is still waiting for further medical tests to determine how severe the cancer is, so he can consider his position before making an announcement?

However:

CDfm wrote: »

Should he have expected his medical information to be kept private and will its disclosure affect his personnal and professional life.

Other people in senior life can maintain pretence about their sexual orientation etc without a problem.Why not health.

I think in this scenario, the public definitely have a right to know if a senior Cabinet minister is suffering from a particularly vicious form of cancer with a very low survival rate that will certainly have a profound effect on his ability to carry out his duties.

RobFowl

The guy hasn't commented and so far the story is only a story not fact.
If it is true (and i hope it is not) then I wish him all the best.

Generally men are 6 times less likely to visit a GP than women. I'm not aware of any research on how men in the public eye react as opposed to women.
My experience is that men are more likely to share serious illness details but seem to be more fairly dealt with by the press than women.
(I'm a male health care professional FWIW)

LostinBlanch

CDfm wrote: »

Seeing some less than flattering things posted on another forum earlier surprised me.

BL as Finance Minister has tackled difficult issues since he has been appointed and seems to have borne his illness stoically and done quite a good job.

Maybe he has, but reading reports he was only diagnosed a week before christmas, and has been out of the public view so we can only guess at this stage. FWIW I'll agree with you though, not that it matters.

CDfm wrote: »

The only reason I can see for its leak was political by someone in the Health Service.

Or by someone in his own party with an axe to grind against him personally.

CDfm wrote: »

Is he as a guy is it admirable that he has manned up like he has and is it the right thing to do.

Has he manned up though? He has made no comment nor has his family, and what does manning up have to do with this anyway?

CDfm wrote: »

Would his illness be treated differently if he were a woman.

I doubt it, but I could be wrong. Cancer is cancer.

CDfm wrote: »

Should he have expected his medical information to be kept private and will its disclosure affect his personnal and professional life.

Isn't there a doctor patient code of confidentiality? Shouldn't he as a patient expect the same that anyone else does? As to the disclosure, how can it not?

CDfm wrote: »

Other people in senior life can maintain pretence about their sexual orientation etc without a problem.Why not health.

To me that's a personal choice and not one that affects their lifespan or ability to do their job as seriously as cancer.

CDfm

Its an illness and you would be unlikely to speculate about the mental capacity of a disabled person so why this.

I dont think personally it was a public interest need at this time.

The breach of confidentiality is really rough.

Dr Galen

i'd be very wary about suggesting a breach of medical confidentiality on this. tbh such a high level breach could be pretty easily traced, most hospitals have specific policies for dealing with people in the public eye, be that Brian Lenihan or someone like Bono for example. Its more than your jobs worth really to go around spouting stuff.

its probably more likely that rumours spread within either political circles and were leaked to a media source, but right now we don't know the details.

as to whether this illness could effect his ability to do his job, well that depends on what is actually wrong and how far developed the illness is. I guess we'll know more soon enough. No point speculating til we do i think.

CDfm

Sorry MM - I didnt mean it that what I meant was that at any point of his hospital vists any nurses clerical staff or whoever could have leaked it.

It was a political thing and people have been hurt by it.

trout

I think there are enough threads on this subject ... further speculation will lead to naught.

/thread