Category: News

AN 11-YEAR wait for dermatology services in the mid-west region is to be a thing of the past, according to the HSE, as it begins a major drive to eliminate waiting lists.

Health authorities say they hope that, by next November, no patient will be waiting longer than 12 months for an outpatient appointment.

The longest individual wait for dermatology services in the mid-west area, which includes Clare, went back to 2002, but this case was minor and has since been resolved, according to a HSE spokesperson.

Extra clinics are now being provided in Ennis, Limerick and Nenagh to eliminate the 1, 500 patients currently on the list.

A validation exercise was recently carried out to establish the real numbers of those actually requiring an appointment and it was found that just 386 patients out of the 1,767 were waiting less than one year.

Medicine Directorate manager for the Mid Western Hospitals Group, Paula Cussen Murphy said, “The people of the mid-west are very fortunate to have secured two additional consultant dermatologists in the last while. The dermatology service is now being developed to provide a range of services across the region.”

Consultant dermatologist, Dr Bart Ramsey said, “Real progress has and is being made. There is a need to expand the dermatology nursing services to enable more patients to be seen and treated.

“An expanded dedicated space for dermatology is in building development. This will give us much needed physical space to see and treat more patients,” he added.

BABIES and young children do not come with an instruction manual, leaving stressed-out parents often turning to the internet for help.

One Ennis GP now plans to take some of the mystery out of caring for a new baby, and dispelling many of the myths perpetrated mainly through the internet and hearsay, by holding classes to guide parents through the first year.

Dr Máire Finn, from the Ennis Family Medical Centre, also hopes the classes will provide a way for new parents to link up and get support from each other.

The GP and mother of two explained that many new parents are isolated in the community.

They no longer live near their own parents or relatives, and have no one to ask for advice about day-to-day concerns.

“I know when I came home with my first baby, I was nervous, even though I probably knew more than most parents from a medical point of view,” she said.

Like many other mothers, she did not have extended family around to allay any fears. This course, she hopes, will provide such a service for new families, many of whom are living in new neighbourhoods, away from grandparents, in-laws, family members and friends.

‘Baby’s First Year: A Parent’s Guide’ will be run by the experienced family GP in the medical centre, where she will be supported by other health professionals, including the practice nurse who can deal with questions and issues relating to vaccinations.

Dr Finn will cover a wide variety of topics during the two-day course beginning in April, including common childhood illnesses, breastand bottle-feeding issues, weaning and solid issues, and any concerns or questions the parents bring to the session.

Dr Finn will also deal with issues relating to postnatal depression.

“It is a huge thing. I find most people with postnatal depression are coming in when the baby is nine months old, rather than when the baby is very small. When the baby is small, you are wrecked.

“It is months later, when teething isn’t so bad and the baby is sleeping more, when there is no excuse, that people realise there is something not right,” she explained.

“I want to normalise things and also make parents aware of when there is something to worry about. It is normal for children to get colic, it is normal for them to cry, normal for them to spit up,” she said.

“I want to provide a good support group where parents can be honest with each other, and I will certainly be honest.”

The most important part of the class will be the questions and answers section at the end where parents are encouraged to share their concerns, their questions and even their tips.

The course costs € 100, with an information package provided to each parent.

As part of her work during the classes, Dr Finn will be dealing with often well-intentioned advice on the internet.

During this section, she will highlight good advice and warn against what can often be dangerous suggestions. Clare People readers are free to send any such advice they have come across online for Dr Finn to appraise – the good, bad and downright funny – to cgallagher@clarepeople.ie.

All replies will be published in The Clare People in the coming week. Senders’ anonymity will be respected.

A NEW Garda text alert system aimed at helping to reduce the incidents of crime is set to be rolled out in Clare over the next month.

Details of the system were outlined at a meeting in Ennis on Thursday night to discuss crime and cutbacks to Garda budgets.

Chief Superintendent of the Clare Garda Division, John Kerin, told the Fianna Fáil organised meeting that the system is in the final stages of development.

“We’re very close to it. Why it’s delayed so long is that we want to make sure it’s done properly and the messages going out are controlled. We’ve had incidents up the country where individuals have put out messages that this person or this car have been around the area and people have been attacked by neighbours because they thought they were up to no good in the area. But they are actually there on genuine business,” he said.

He added, “I’ve to look at how I can do it on an 18- or 19-hour basis from a central location in Clare. We’ve nearly completed that and I’m hoping to roll out that in the next four to five weeks.”

Chief Supt Kerin stressed the importance of establishing community alert and neighbourhood watch schemes. Citing an increase in thefts on farms and the incidence of daytime burglaries, Mr Kerin also said there is an onus on people to take common sense security measures to protect their property.

He said, “The amount of houses that are broken into through unlocked doors and windows in the evening time is unbelievable. The statistics are very, very high. When I joined the Guards and up to about 15 years ago, most of the burglaries were being done in the dead of night when we were all asleep. But the re- ality now is that most burglaries are being down between 2pm and 10 or 11 o’clock at night, when people are gone to shops or up to mass or wherever. Even if you’re leaving the house for 10 or 15 minutes, lock it, talk to your neighbours and ask them to keep an eye on your house.”

The meeting heard that levels of crime have fallen by 33 per cent in Clare over the past five years. Mr Kerin said there has been a 42 per cent reduction in the level of assaults in Clare in that same period.

He added, “Despite a popular perception that burglaries are up, they are actually down by 163 in Clare over the last five years (-31 per cent). Having said that there were 364 break-ins to houses last year which is on average of one a day.”

Mr Kerin said, “Thefts, all kinds of thefts, are down by 304 crimes in that period but there was still 1,119 thefts in Clare last year. That’s an average of between three or four per day.”

THE closure of nine garda stations has left a “vacuum” in parts of Clare, the county’s senior garda has said.

The closures earlier this year in rural parts of the county left 17 stations open in Clare.

Chief Superintendent of the Clare Garda Division, John Kerin, was speaking in Ennis on Thursday night, where he also warned that ongoing cuts to resources may soon start to impact on the ability of Clare gardaí to police charity races and events.

He said, “The closure of nine garda stations has definitely created a vacuum around the county and there is no point in saying otherwise. It is a challenge for us as a garda management.”

Mr Kerin told a meeting oragnised to discuss cuts to garda resources that the biggest loss arising from the closures was the presence of a guard in the community.

The meeting heard a total of 48 gardaí have left the Clare division since March 2010, including two superintendents and one detective inspector.

Chief Supt Kerin told the meeting that four more retirements are anticipated this year, while a number of Clare gardaí are considering taking career breaks in Australia.

A further 25 to 30 guards are also expected to retire from the Clare Garda Division by August 2014, the meeting heard.

Describing the cuts in resources as a “very, very serious situation”, Chief Supt Kerin said he may have to con- sider withdrawing the availability of gardaí for charity events.

“We will continue to do the best with the number’s we’ve got but people have got to understand, if you’re in a business or you’re a farmer whatever, if you have x-amount of resources today and they are gone from you tomorrow, you can’t deliver the same services that you used to be able to do. It’s a matter of trying to do your best with what you have. But it’s not easy”.

He added, “I’m hoping that we can still go out on Saturdays and Sundays and stop traffic for people that are doing charity work. We love getting involved. From our perspective, they are great and they build up a lot of goodwill for us with the public and a lot of our own people are involved with it. But if I’ve only got X-amount of resources on Saturday and Sunday, I can’t put two or three guards doing that (charity events). It’s going to be very difficult to say no to some of these people but that’s the way things are going to go unless things change and unless things change very quickly.”

Mr Kerin said he and other senior gardaí will meet with any communities who are concerned about crime in their area.

Mr Kerin told the meeting a substantial amount of garda resources are now being used to deal with antisocial behaviour in some parts of the county.

THE bowel cancer screening service at Ennis General Hospital will save lives.That is according to consultant gastroenterologist Dr Maeve Skelly who explained that Irish men have the worst survival rate from bowel cancer in Europe and the fourth worst survival rate in the world.

As many as 970 people die from bowel cancer in Ireland every year.

Now people aged between 60 and 69 years of age from the mid-west area, and slightly outside the region, will be invited to take part in a bowel screening programme at the state-of-the-art and highly accredited endoscopy unit at Ennis General Hospital.

“This is a great development for the people of the mid-west. Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in Ireland, and we have known for some time that screening for it can prevent cancers and save lives,” said Dr Skelly.

Although the cancer is slightly more common in men, both genders will be invited to take part in the screening programme.

People in their sixties will receive a letter inviting them to provide a sample of their bowel motion through a system called a FIT test. For the vast majority of people, this sample will not contain any trace of blood and they will be reassured that no more action is needed.

Dr Skelly explained that 94 per cent of people will be found to have a clear sample and assured that they are bowel cancer-free. A small percentage of people, approximately six per cent, will be found to have traces of blood (FIT positive) and they will be contacted by the nurse specialist based in Ennis hospital who will arrange for them to have a colonoscopy. This is a camera test of the bowel, which takes approximately 40 minutes and will be done in Ennis hospital as a day case.

Many of the colonoscopies will be normal. Some people, approximate- ly 50 per cent of those invited for a colonoscopy, will be found to have polyps, which are benign growths in the lining of the bowel. These will be removed at the time of colonoscopy to prevent the patient developing cancer at a later date.

Some people will be found to have cancer and they will be fast-tracked to surgery in the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick. This hospital already does more colorectal cancer surgery than any other hospital in the country so it has considerable expertise.

Dr Skelly paid tribute to all HSE staff in the mid-west for securing the screening service.

A CHURCH and a primary school in North Clare were broken into last week as criminal activity in county reaches a new low.

Gardaí are investigating the theft of eleven laptop computers and a number of other pieces of electrical equipment from New Quay National School while Gardaí in Ennistymon are also investigating the theft of two collection boxes from Kilfenora Church.

The New Quay school break-in took place some time between 10pm last Wednesday night, March 6, and 9am on Thursday morning. The thieves gained access to the school’s computer room by forcing open a back window.

Gardaí are investigating after thousands of euro worth of equipment were stolen from a school in North Clare. Eleven Toshiba laptops were taken along with, a white camcorder, two Fuji digital cameras, a black Nikon camera and a small amount of cash. Clare’s Crime Prevention Officer, Joe Downey, has asked that anyone with information on the stolen equipment or those responsible are urged to contact Ennistymon Gardaí on 7072180.

Two black collection boxes were also stolen from the church in Kilfenora last week. The theft took place between 9am on Saturday, March 2, and 7pm that evening.

Clare Gardaí are also looking for information from the public on a number of burglaries which have taken place recently. Between 1pm on March 3 and noon on March 5 a house at Islandmore Farm in Flagmount was broken into with 17 brass rods taken.

A house in Tullyglass in Shannon was ransacked at some time between February 20 and February 26 while the occupants were away on holiday. Nothing was stolen from the house during this incident.

A burglary also took place in a house in Gort na Blath in Ennis at some time between 11.15am and 9.30pm on Friday, March 8. A small amount of money was taken. There was also a burglary in the Willowgrove in Ennis on the same day – at some time between 8.50am and 11.30pm. Anyone with information about any of these crimes is asked to contact their local Garda Station.

ENNIS General Hospital has been given the green light not just to provide the first bowel-screening programme for Clare, but for the whole mid-west region and beyond.

Hospital Manager Frank Keane, who will remain on at the hospital until the new management structure is up and running, described the accreditation of the hospital’s endoscope service by the UK-based Joint Advisory Group (JAG) as “a major feather in the cap of Ennis hospital.”

The status was not easily achieved, he reminded journalists and medical professionals at a press launch yesterday (Monday).

“The National Cancer Control Programme announced at the end of 2010 that a colonoscopy screening would be provided to an isolated age group,” he said.

At that point, centres throughout the country vied for the tender to provide screening services. Ennis General Hospital was one of 15 centres picked as a potential candidate, but it still had a lot of work to do.

Firstly, the endoscopy unit only existed on paper at the time. Once it was built, it had to receive hardsought accreditation from JAG, which is the standards body for endoscopy throughout the National Health Service. In 2011, this accreditation was deferred due to the issues relating to the length of the hospital’s waiting list and waiting lists throughout the mid west.

In September last year, issues relat ing to waiting lists had been rectified and on February 28, Ennis General Hospital got the green light.

Mr Keane said that while Ennis will provide the screening service for all of the mid-west, and areas outside the mid-west, the hospital will continue to work with the unit in Nenagh who is also seeking accreditation if and when more screening centres are opened.

Advance Nurse Practitioners are also being employed at every unit. As there are currently no such positions in the country, these specialised nurses are being employed especially.

Kathleen Stack took up the position in Ennis on Monday last, and will coordinate with patients who take up the offer of this life-saving screening.

“Ennis hospital has a bright but different future,” explained Mr Keane.

THE NUMBER of homeless people in Clare has skyrocketed over the last 12 months with local agencies reporting scores or families going hungry in the county each week.

A total of 304 homeless people presented in Clare last year, an increase of more than 23 per cent on the 2011 figure. That is according to the draft report of the Mid West Regional Action Plan, which is due to be published later this week. The report also reveals that 17 Clare people identified themselves as being homeless to Limerick City Council, 14 to Limerick County Council at 2 to North Tipperary County Council.

Domestic violence was the main cause of homeless in Clare last year with 83 people made homeless because of an unsafe home environment. Nearly 200 of the people were aged between 20 and 40 years of age but 10 Clare people in their 60s were made homeless last year as-well-as 19 teenagers.

Josie O’Brien of the HELP homeless organisation in Ennis has seen a large increase in the number of people going without food in Clare over the last 12 months.

She is currently providing food each week for two familes in the Ennis area, including a seven month old baby and a newborn infant.

“HELP has been feeding a little baby and his mother since October. Over the past few weeks I have also been bringing food to another Ennis based family with four children, including a newborn infant,” she said.

“The people of Clare have been so generous. I put a request for food up on our facebook page and invariable someone always comes up with the goods. They are in a desperate situation, I went out to them [the family with four children] yesterday and they had nothing in the fridge but butter. We went out with a load of food that a woman in Miltown donated but other than that they had nothing.”

According to Orla Ní Eile, of the Clare Immigrant Support Centre, legal and illegal immigrant in Clare and their Irish-born children are currently falling through the cracks and not receiving any support from the authorities.

“People are going hungry in Clare each week. It is sad to say it but it is the truth,” she said.

“A lot of these people are returning Irish nationals or foreign workers, who were working legally in Clare but they discover, when they lose their job, that their employer has not been paying tax for them.

“Without a record or paying tax it is almost impossible for them to get any assistance from the state.

“There are dozen of families going without basic food in Clare each week and the situation is getting worse.”

For more information on HELP, search for ‘help the homeless in Clare’ on Facebook.

THE chairman and management of Shannon Airport Authority have welcomed the appointment of four new members to the board of the newly independent Shannon Airport Authority. The new appointees are US-based public policy consultant and transport expert Kathryn O’Leary Higgins, Managing Director of Clare FM and Tipp FM radio stations Liam O’Shea and Shannon Airport worker-directors Joe Buckley (Cargo & Technical Traffic Development Manager) and Kevin McCarthy (Airport Police Fire Officer).

The four new directors join existing board members, Chairman Rose Hynes, Airport Director Mary Considine and Pat Dalton, Chief Financial Officer of One51.

“I welcome these board appointments. The new directors provide us with the type of expertise and experience that is required to deliver the strategic vision for the airport, which is around achieving significant passenger growth and the development of the International Aviation Services Centre at Shannon over the next five years,” said Rose Hynes, the chairman of NewCo, the new company established to oversee the new independent Shannon Airport.

“I look forward to working with the new board members at this exciting and challenging time for Shannon Airport,” Ms Hynes added.

Shannon Chamber president Kevin Thompstone has described the new board appointments at Shannon Airport Authority (SAA) as a step nearer the completion of the change process at the airport.

“With a governance strategy now in place at SAA, plans underway to merge SAA and Shannon Development into a new entity, and the selection of a new CEO for the merged entity pending, the elements to drive the transformational change required at Shannon Airport are progressively being put in place,” he said.

“The SAA board’s complementary set of skills in public policy, transport, aviation, communications, change management, investment and planning, contributes the collective capability to chart a new future for Shannon,” the former chief executive of Shannon Development said.

AN ELDERLY Lisdoonvarna man is recovering in hospital today following a serious accident just outside Ennistymon on Sunday afternoon.

The man, who is in his 60s, was injured when the van he was travelling in collided with a concrete pillar at the Kilfenora junction on the N67 between Ennistymon and Lisdoonvarna.

The man is understood to have suffered a blackout before the vehicle veered off the road and into the pillar.

Two units of the fire brigade and an ambulance from Ennistymon, along with a rapid response paramedic and the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coastguard, all responded to the incident.

The man was transferred by helicopter from North Clare to the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick where injuries were said to be serious but not immediately lifethreatening.

The road remained closed for several hours on Sunday while a forensic examination was completed.

Meanwhile, a stag weekend in the Burren nearly turned to tragedy on Saturday when a male climber had a lucky escape after falling nearly 30 feet while abseiling.

The incident happened just before 5pm on Saturday afternoon when a group was climbing near Moneen Mountain in the Burren.

The Doolin Unit of the Irish Coastguard stretchered the injured man from inside a rocky gorge to an area where the Shannon-based Coastguard helicopter could airlift him to hospital.

The man is understood to have broken both of his ankles in the incident, as well as suffering back injury.

“There was a group of people on a stag in the Burren. One man fell around 25 feet and had suspected fractures to both his ankles and some lower back pain. The spot was just 400 metres from the road but, because of the way his body landed, it was difficult to move him,” said Mattie Shannon of the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coastguard.

“The helicopter was on the scene and we assisted the winch-man to airlift him from the location and on to Limerick.”