Irish Hospital’s face major disruption’s as junior doctors to vote on strike action
Irish Hospitals are now facing major disruption’s as thousands of junior doctors prepare to vote on industrial action in protest at their working hours.
The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) will announce today that its 2,000 junior doctor members will begin balloting for industrial action next month as part of the ‘Enough is Enough’ campaign.
The doctors by law should work no more than 48 hours a week, but many are clocking up more than 100.
And some are working shifts of up to 72 hours, with major implications for patient safety and the medics’ own health.
Hospitals, particularly outside Dublin, are hugely reliant on around 4,900 junior doctors to maintain services, and any protest action would have a serious effect on patient care.
Action by the doctors, who will begin balloting early next month, could see them walking off the job after a certain number of hours.
They could also refuse to do tasks which they say can take up to 30pc of their time and are outside their training, such as taking blood samples, scans and administering intravenous drugs.
Due to the need for notice to be given of any action, it would take until early autumn before it would begin.
The last major ballot on industrial action was in 2009, but disruption was averted after the Labour Relations Commission intervened.
Strike action by junior doctors last occurred more than 20 years ago, and although there have been ballots since and protests at individual hospitals, the medics have not taken en masse to the picket lines.
The IMO has lost many junior doctor members in recent years because of disillusionment with its failure to win improvements in their working conditions.
A social media campaign on Twitter earlier this year gained publicity, but one of the main problems in organising large-scale protests is that junior doctors are difficult to mobilise.
JEOPARDISE: This is because many are from abroad and cannot afford to jeopardise their income.
A spokesman for the IMO said it would embark on a “major campaign to force the Government to reduce the excessive hours”.
He added: “The Government is in blatant breach of the European Working Time Directive and routinely forces young doctors to work longer hours than are tolerated in almost any other profession.
“This puts patient safety and the health and welfare of doctors at risk.”
The HSE promised earlier this year that no junior doctor would have to work more than 68 hours in a week, and that by the beginning of June they would not have to do longer than a 24-hour continuous shift. This has yet to materialise.
Junior doctors last week began their latest six-month rotations in hospitals, but there were around 100 vacancies that could not be filled.
The HSE has said that while progress towards compliance has been made in some locations – including Galway University Hospital and St Vincent’s University Hospital – the most significant challenges are in small- to medium-sized hospitals.
These include Portlaoise, Kerry General and Letterkenny, which have low numbers of doctors on rotas in surgery, anaesthetics, paediatrics and obstetrics, forcing them to work longer hours.
The HSE conceded that many doctors did not receive adequate daily rest, and many worked more than the average 48-hour week.
Hospitals that are short of junior doctors have to resort to agency staff to cover critical service gaps, but these are expensive and do not provide the continuity of care needed.
The core of the problem is that many of the young Irish doctors in training are choosing to go abroad rather than work here.
New technology allows retailers to recognise a celebrity approaching
It is a moment of pure panic for a shop assistant – you recognise the person in front of you demanding attention but you cant place them do not have time to deal with them.
Then, as soon as they leave the shop, the penny drops and you realise you have snubbed one of the rich and famous, and your boss is not going to be happy that you have turned away a month’s worth of sales or a glowing celebrity endorsement.
But now a purpose-built facial-recognition system has been designed to ensure no hapless shop assistant accidentally snubs their best customer again, the Sunday Times reported.
The VIP-identification technology, created by NEC IT Solutions, is already being tested in about a dozen top stores and exclusive hotels in Britain, America and the Far East.
The Cambridge based company believe it could help provide a personalised service and improve customer service.
It could prevent blushes such as those of watersports store owner Dave Buckland, who failed to recognise the Duchess of Cambridge when she went in to his shop to buy a wetsuit last year.
The company already supplies software to help security services spot terrorists and other criminals, works by analysing footage of customers’ faces as they walk through the door.
Various measurements of the face are taken to create a numerical code, known as a face template, which is checked against a database of clients.
An alert is sent to staff via computer, iPad or smartphone, providing details that might include their names, dress size, favourite room or previous spending.
Chris de Silva, a vice-president at NEC IT Solutions, said: ” The luxury end of the market is quite interested in it — they’re interested in VIPs.”
Because they use the neural network to create a holistic view of the face, it still works when people wear sunglasses, hats and scarves in an effort to prevent identification, he claimed, dismissing the idea that it could create privacy concerns.
Recent tests had found that facial hair, changes in weight or hair colour and the passage of time did not affect the accuracy of the system.
“Essentially if a human can identify a face, our system can also do so — but it never gets tired or bored,” he said.
Mr De Silva described the recognition software as an extension of the loyalty-card system, and said it may tempt customers back to the high street by bringing back the personal element.
What would Ted think of Pauline now? Mrs. Doyle actress bares all for artists
SLIGO BORN ACTRESS PAULINE MCLYNN STRIPPED DOWN TO HER BIRTHDAY SUIT TO POSE FOR THE SKY ARTS PORTRAIT ARTIST OF THE YEAR.
The 51-year-old lay naked across a chaise longue with nothing but a skimpy sheet to cover her modesty.
Pauline was emulating iconic painting The Rokeby Venus by Velazquez. It is Velazquez’s only female nude and the portrait now hangs in the National Gallery in London.
And Pauline says holding the pose wasn’t easy. “I had the most awkward of positions to keep,” she told the Herald.
“My neck is completely gone at this stage and the rest of me is slowly but surely seizing up.
“But I used to be a history of art student so I love all this,” she explained. “My mother has always painted and one of my first boyfriends was an artist and I posed for him the odd time – never naked mind.”
The former Shameless star admits she was somewhat taken aback when she viewed the paintings.
“You see some of the results and you think ‘Jaysus I’m not looking my best today’ but they are all accurate, I have to say. They’re all great.”
And Pauline will get to keep her favourite painting.
The actress turned 51 last week but a birthday bash was far from her mind. Instead, Pauline spent the day filming Jason Byrne’s upcoming BBC comedy Father Figure.
“It was my last day on set so I worked a 14-hour day,” she laughed.
Pauline wasn’t the only celebrity to pose for painters in Dublin’s RDS.
Moone Boy star David Rawle was a muse along with musician Lethal Bizzle.
Over 1,800 people entered the arts contest. The series finalists will see their work displayed in the National Portrait Gallery.
The winner will be awarded a €11,500 commission to produce a portrait of double-Booker Prize winning author Hilary Mantel.
Kathleen Lynch says people with disabilities will not be asked to help fund their own care
Minister of State with responsibility for Disability, Older People, Equality & Mental Health Kathleen Lynch has said that people with disabilities will not be asked to co-fund their care.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Ms Lynch said a review of the Fair Deal scheme, whereby people co-fund their own nursing home care, is under way.
Her comments follow reports at the weekend that the Government was poised to force patients requiring disability and mental health services to co-fund their own care.
Ms Lynch also said that State-run nursing homes were not facing closure but that massive works were required to upgrade the facilities due to the age of the residential units.
Donegal chiropractor to be sentenced for breaking into ex-girlfriend’s home and assaulting her
A Donegal chiropractor will be sentenced next week for breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s home and then dragging her back into the house and assaulting her.
Helen McEvily (33) was at home after a night out when Kevin Ginty (46) climbed in through her sitting room window. She managed to leave the house and call the gardaí.
Sergeant Martin Finnan told Deirdre Murphy SC, prosecuting that Ms McEvily was making her way to a neighbour’s house and was on the phone again to local gardaí when the line went dead. Ginty then wrapped his arm around her neck and dragged her back into the house.
He put the woman at the bottom of the stairs and struck her head off the bottom step before dragging her up to her bedroom.
The gardaí called her phone again but Ginty took it, impersonated a woman’s voice and told officers the victim was at a disco.
Sgt Finnan said Ginty then left the house and she called the gardaí again. When officers arrived at Ms McEvily’s home, Ginty drove up to the house and was arrested for drink driving.
Ms McEvily was left with bruising to her inner arm, upper and lower back and buttocks. There were also abrasions on her breast and chest area and scratches to her left ankle and sole of her left foot.
Ginty of St Columbas Terrace, Letterkenny, pleaded guilty to burglary and assault at the woman’s home on April 4, 2010. He has one previous minor conviction as well as the drink driving offence at the woman’s home.
Ms McEvily read her victim impact report in which she stated that a part of her did not survive that night.
“I am not the same mother, I am not the same sister,” she said, adding that she has had to attend counselling. She said she has trouble sleeping at night and feels paranoid about any noise or movements.
Ms McEvily said everything in her life now revolves around the fact that she was attacked.
“I can barely remember what it is to have a normal life. It is easier to accept how my life is now rather than continuing to fight to try and get back to a person that no longer exists,” the woman continued.
She said she has since moved house and has installed personal alarms in her new home.
“This has incident has prevented me moving on with my life, to me I am no longer living, I survive,” Ms McEvily said.
Sgt Finnan agreed with Gerard Clarke SC, defending that Ms McEvily took out a restraining order on Ginty to prevent him from going near her home or workplace and from contacting her in anyway.
He accepted that Ginty has “operated under this restriction” and that his client is “under no illusion” that their relationship is over and he is no longer welcome in her house.
Sgt Finnan accepted that the Ginty and Ms McEvily had been in an “on and off” sexual relationship since October 2007 and had sex two days before he broke into her home.
He further accepted that Ms McEvily told another prosecuting garda, Detective Garda Martin Mannion, that when Ginty brought her into her bedroom, he lay down on the bed beside her, she screamed for help and he left.
Mr Clarke told Mr Justice Paul Carney that his client came from a highly respected and well regarded family in Letterkenny.
Mr Justice Carney remanded Ginty in custody and adjourned the case to next Monday for sentence
Female mammals can choose the sex of their offspring by controlling sperm
New research has backed up a theory that females can speed up or slow down ‘male’ and ‘female’ sperm in the reproductive tract to choose the sex.
A NEW STUDY has shown that females in the animal kingdom have even more control than we thought and can actually choose the sex of their offspring.
The study, published in PLOS ONE, has shown that mammalian species do this in order to beat the odds and produce extra grandchildren, ensuring a stronger bloodline.
“This is one of the holy grails of modern evolutionary biology — finding the data which definitively show that when females choose the sex of their offspring, they are doing so strategically to produce more grandchildren,” said Joseph Garner, PhD, associate professor of comparative medicine and senior author of the study.
Scientists analysed 90 years of breeding records from San Diego Zoo and assembled three-generation pedigrees of more than 2,300 animals.
Major mammal groups were represented, including primates; carnivores, such as lions, bears and wolves; cloven-hoofed animals, such as cows, buffalo and deer; and odd-toed grazing animals, such as horses and rhinos.
The data showed that when females produced mostly sons, those sons had 2.7 times more children per capita than those whose mothers bore equal numbers of male and female offspring.
Researchers found that grandmothers and grandfathers were able to strategically choose to give birth to sons, if those sons would be high-quality and in turn reward them with more grandchildren. The process is believed to be largely controlled by the females, Garner said.
You can think of this as being girl power at work in the animal kingdom. We like to think of reproduction as being all about the males competing for females, with females dutifully picking the winner. But in reality females have much more invested than males, and they are making highly strategic decisions about their reproduction based on the environment, their condition and the quality of their mate.
Though Garner said that the exact mechanism isn’t known, one theory that holds strong is that the females is picking the sperm that will produce the sex that will serve her interests the most.
Garner said that this is done by controlling the ‘male’ and ‘female’ sperm, which have different shapes, as they move through the mucous in the reproductive tract, selectively slowing down or speeding up the sperm they want to select.
There may be some parallels among humans, Garner said, with some studies suggesting that they may be able to adjust their sex-ratios in response to social cues. For examples, in societies where a man can have more than one wife, the top-ranking wife is much more likely to have a son than the lower tanking wife.
A study of 400 US billionaires, published in 2013, also found that they were more likely to have sons than daughters — presumably, the scientists hypothesized, because sons tend to retain the family’s wealth.
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