Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG Monday

Minister Reilly says junior doctors need to be more valued here

 

A REPORT PROPOSES CHANGES TO DOCTOR TRAINING

Minister for Health Dr James Reilly at the launch in Government Buildings today of the Strategic Review of Medical Training and Career Structure.

Proposals to provide greater structure in medical careers and make doctors feel more valued in the health service are contained in a new report commissioned by the Department of Health.

Minister for Health James Reilly said the report would address the lack of respect and value that junior doctors feel they get from the health system, as well as providing more certainty about their future career progression.

He said that medical training had developed haphazardly over the year and the report by the Strategic Review Working Group was a real attempt to put structure on this system.

Today’s report is the third and final report produced by the working group chaired by Professor Brian MacCraith, president of Dublin City University. It was asked by the Minister to look at training and career structures for doctors to a background of skills shortages in many areas and increasing medical emigration.

The report says a national workforce planning structure should be established in the Department of Health to plan medical manpower needs in the future.

The current “multi-step” system for appointing consultants should be re-designed and modernised as a matter of priority, it says. “A systems and service-wide approach to posts – both new and replacement – should be incorporated, that better balances local autonomy and national coordination – in line with the hospital group structures.”

“Junior doctors don’t feel valued in the health system, and we cannot allow this to continue,” said Leo Kearns, national lead for transformation and change with theHealth Service Executive. “it is unacceptable that we can’t retain large number of doctors.”

Career structures and pathways for 900 doctors in service posts in the acute hospital sector and 260 public and community health doctors are limited, the report notes. It says the HSE should put in place processes that address this issue, in line with the needs of the health service, patient safety and registration and training requirements for doctors.

The report also calls for the setting up of a working group to look at the current and future role of public health specialists and suggest measures should be introduced to enhance the awareness among medical students of public health as a career option.

In relation to GPs, it says contracts should be introduced to allow for flexible working, as well as measures to encourage newly qualified GPs to remain in Ireland at the end of training.

Leo Varadkar confident Shannon Airport can ‘stand on its one’

 

Some eighteen months on from its separation from the DAA, Shannon Airport is already demonstrating its ability to “stand alone”, according to the Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar.

He was speaking as legislation providing for the merger of Shannon Airport and Shannon Development, through the creation of the Shannon Group, was introduced in the Dail.

Fianna Fail transport spokesman Timmy Dooley, while broadly supportive of the aims of the State Airports (Shannon Group) Bill, said he remained concerned that the new airport company would not have the financial firepower of Aer Rianta International, which stays with the DAA, to fall back on.

And nor, said Deputy Dooley, could the airport rely on the rent revenue from former Shannon Development companies after Minister Varadkar said that the Shannon Group’s two constituent companies would be self-contained and could not “cross-subsidise” one another. This, Deputy Dooley said, was contrary to suggestions from government following the publication of the Booz report which resulted in the decision to free Shannon from the DAA.

That report, Deputy Dooley said, had “clearly stated that the viability of an independent Shannon was only possible if there was an association with the lands and activities of Shannon Development, and that an independent airport would not be viable unless there was between three million and five million terminal passengers”.

Passenger numbers at Shannon had grown to 1.4 million last year but this was still some way short of projections of a business plan published following the Booz report.

“The Minister also identified the expectation that there will be 10% growth this year, in line with the first months of the year. If that continues throughout the year, at best there will be an increase of 200,000 passengers, which brings us to 1.6 million passengers, well short of the 1.9 million that was projected in the business plan on which the Minister took the decision to separate the airport and take away Aer Rianta International,” said Deputy Dooley.

But Minister Varadkar expressed his confidence in the viability of Shannon, which had already made a profit in its first year of independence, a feat he described as “remarkable”.

Keeping Shannon Airport and Shannon Commercial Enterprises, as what remains of Shannon Development is to be known, as separate entities was necessary to comply with state aid rules and to ensure “financial discipline” at both, the minister said.

“It is important to point out that since Shannon Airport gained independence from the DAA 18 months ago, it has shown that it is able to stand alone. It has halted the decline in passenger numbers and there is going to be renewed growth this year, both in the numbers of routes and passengers.”

“While it is true,” the minister said, “that the airport will not reach the passenger levels forecast in the 2012 business plan, these forecasts were very ambitious, rightly so.

“Factors which contribute to this are lower than anticipated transit traffic such as that of a military nature and a delay in concluding an agreement with Ryanair on new services. The agreement to which I refer has now been concluded.

However, post-2014, the Shannon Airport Authority, SAA, expects terminal traffic levels to catch up with the business plan estimates, albeit military traffic is likely to remain on a downward trajectory. In effect, the airport is lagging just one year behind the traffic estimates in the business plan.”

Deputies from Limerick and Clare all welcomed the bill, with Fine Gael TD Pat O’Donovan being so bold as to suggest that consideration be given to an admittedly “controversial” proposal to see “the name of the airport reflecting its nearest city”.

But his Fine Gael colleague in Clare, Deputy Pat Breen, hoped that any proposal to rename Shannon “Limerick International Airport” never gets off the ground, given the worldwide brand recognition Shannon already enjoys.

New drivers in Ireland to display novice ‘N’ plates from next month

 

QUALIFIED MOTORISTS WITH LESS THAN TWO YEARS’ EXPERIENCE ALSO FACE STRICTER PENALTY POINTS

Newly qualified drivers will have to display ’N’ plates for two years and a stricter penalty points system, from next month.

Newly qualified drivers will have to display ’N’ plates for two years and will have a stricter penalty points system, from next month.

A fine of €60 will apply for novice drivers and those on learner permits who are not displaying ‘N’ or ‘L’ plates from August 1st. Those on learner permits driving unaccompanied also face a €60 fine.

The new novice rule will only apply to motorists who acquire their first full licence after August 1st.

It will not apply to drivers who recently passed their test, or to individuals holding a full licence for one category of vehicle but seeking a permit for another.

Novice drivers will also be subject to the lower drink drive level and a penalty point limit of six points.

Currently a driver is put off the road if they accumulate 12 penalty points within a three-year period.

The changes are contained in the Road Traffic (No 2) Act 2013 and are designed to reduce the number of deaths and traffic incidents on our roads.

Other measures include allowing gardaí to take blood samples from unconscious drivers and to ask suspect drivers to “walk the line”.

Drivers will also face three penalty points for speeding, illegal use of a mobile phone and not wearing a seat belt.

Mrs Brown (Brendan O’Carroll) now set for chat show

 

BRENDAN O’CARROLL IS SET FOR A CHAT SHOW AS MRS. BROWN.

The actor – who has become hugely popular as the foul-mouthed Irish matriarch – could become the new Mrs. Merton with TV bosses reportedly keen to create a programme based on Caroline Aherne’s popular 90s show.

An insider told the Sunday Mirror newspaper: ”Agnes Brown is irreverent, outspoken and ¬incredibly nosey – perfect qualities for a chat-show host.

”The hope is it would be very much in line with ‘The Mrs. Merton Show’, which was a huge hit.

”Things are at an early stage but senior staff are hopeful this can happen. It’s a fantastic idea and seems like a near-certain hit on paper.”

It is said the BBC are very keen to ”get the wheels in motion” on the project, due to the huge success of ‘Mrs. Brown’s Boys’ – with some episodes across the three series watched by more than 11 million people.

Meanwhile, ‘Mrs. Merton’ ended its four-year run on the air in 1998 because ¬Caroline wanted to focus on other projects.

The series had become ¬infamous for the way she used cutting comments to put her celebrity guests in their place.

Forget about your Fungi in Dingle – our Donegal dolphins lead the way

 

Up to 50 dolphins have been putting on memorable displays for tourists flocking to Ireland’s most northerly point.

Killer whales and basking sharks popping in and out of the water off Malin Head in Donegal are helping to draw visitors from all over the country and from abroad.

  But it’s the astonishing numbers of dolphins off the Inishowen peninsula which has left local people stunned.

“At the weekend we had a dozen of them in six feet of water off the beach here,” said Ali Farren, who runs the Ardmalin Caravan park at Malin Head.

“I don’t know what it is about this year but there are just so many of them.

“We started to give them names but we had to give up because there are just so many of them.

“We know tens of thousands of people head to Dingle every year searching for just one dolphin; we’re absolutely spoiled for choice.”

John Henry McLaughlin has found his Inishowen Boating Company vessels – normally used for bookings for sea anglers – inundated with requests to go dolphin-spotting instead.

“They’ve become the main attraction,” said Mr McLaughlin.

SPECTACULAR

“We leave from the pier at Culdaff and head up along the coast and it is pretty spectacular. The odd time you might not see them, but you almost always do and they’ll often come alongside the boat and weave in and out of the water.”

Marine expert Emmet Johnston, the Wildlife Service’s Park Ranger for Inishowen, says the large number of dolphins is a result of the unique marine environment.

“We have the cold waters of the Irish Sea and North Channel meeting the warmer waters of the Atlantic and so there’s an abundance of fish and plankton,” he said.

“The are up to 50 dolphins now off north Inishowen and they are staying in the area. That’s also a sign they are very happy here.

“We’ve seen two killer whales this year already and we only expect to see one every other year.”

The park ranger says human appreciation for the dolphins was paying its own rewards.

“Local people have embraced them and once you have that, that’s great for both the dolphins and for the area because it does attract visitors,” he said.

A new anecdotal brain study shows the switching on and off of a woman’s consciousness 

  

Scientists have wondered for some time if a person could experience a state of unconsciousness without entering into a deep sleep. Now a new anecdotal study, published in the journal Epilepsy and Behavior, demonstrates it may be possible to turn someone’s consciousness on and off like the switch of a light.

Researchers made the discovery after implanting electrodes in the brain of a 54-year-old woman with intractable epilepsy. They were looking to identify the site of the woman’s seizures, using electrical stimulation on various regions of her brain including the claustrum, a thin layer of neurons attached to the neocortex center of the brain.

Stimulating this area of the brain appeared to disrupt normal consciousness. Once the electrodes were shut off, the woman returned to a normal state of consciousness and had no memory of what had just occurred. Though the woman was unresponsive while in this state, the brain stimulation caused only a minor change to her motor and language abilities. Additionally, stimulating the claustrum did not cause a seizure.

 BRAIN STIMULATION HELPS WARD OFF DEMENTIA IN SENIOR CITIZENS

To confirm that the woman was experiencing a state of unconsciousness, and not simply losing her ability to speak or move, the researchers asked her to repeat a word or snap her fingers before they began to stimulate her brain. They theorized that if the stimulation was simply disrupting those functions, she would have stopped moving and speaking immediately. Instead the researchers noticed that her motor and speech abilities tapered off slowly.

“The claustrum could constitute a common gate to the ‘external’ and ‘internal’ awareness networks,” the authors write in their study. “This could explain why the electrical stimulation of the claustrum, and the resulting alteration of its normal function, would cause an impairment of consciousness, including an absence of recollection of the external events and of internal/interoceptive experience.” (Interoceptive refers to a stimulus in the body.)

More and more, scientists are employing the technique of brain stimulation to treat a number of neurological health conditions, including Parkinson’s disease,Alzheimer’s disease and dystonia, or involuntary movement disorders. The technique has also proved promising for people with depression.

The findings of this experiment are not only a first step to identifying the region linked to consciousness. The researchers also say that stimulating the area of the brain may help provide a new way to treat epilepsy and possibly also patients in a coma or with schizophrenia or other disorders.