This article will consider the potential for political and public-health mismanagement of the Covid-19 crisis, since confirmation of the first case in Ireland on 29/2/2020 to the time of writing 12/4/2020. I will begin with a brief outline of some of what is known about the Covid-19 virus, and what is known about Coronaviridae in […]
An eminent doctor appointed by Simon Harris to the Medical Council two years ago has resigned in protest at the government’s alleged “blunder” in regard to nursing homes. Dr Marcus de Brun, who runs the Rush Family Practice in Co Dublin, also holds a degree in Microbiology from Trinity College Dublin. His letter of resignation accused the […]
In light of the Irish media’s widespread praise for yesterday’s Sunday Times article outlining the failures of the British Government, it might be worth taking a look at events in a similar timeframe closer to home. “38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster”, was the headline of the Sunday Times piece. Here’s what was happening […]
The burdens of high office are great indeed. Yesterday, as the UK media were salivating over a hard-hitting report in the Sunday Times into mistakes made by Boris Johnson’s Government, Ireland’s flagship Sunday Newspaper was publishing this interview with Simon Harris. Behold, the standard of questioning Irish politicians can expect to face, these days: Two […]
As of 17th April, 302 people have died from the virus in community care settings, which is 62% of all Covid-19 deaths, with 253 of those in nursing homes. Each day, we read on the news about how many cases and deaths there have been, how the curve is flattening, and whether we can ease […]
The Minister for Health, Simon Harris, has refused to amend HSE guidelines on ethical decision-making in the Coronavirus pandemic to explicitly include people with disabilities. The guidelines, an Ethical Framework for Decision Making During a Pandemic, say that sometimes critical care may need to be ‘prioritised’, and that “rationing decisions” should “consider which patients are […]
It’s quite extraordinary, when you put it all in one place, how incompetent the Irish Government has been in relation to the management of the threat Coronavirus poses to nursing homes. At the time of writing, there are around 214 so-called “clusters” of cases in Irish nursing homes, out of 268 nursing homes in total. […]
Simon Harris and HSE’s ‘At home abortions’ makes mockery of Government’s empty care rhetoric #gript
In May 2018, with just a week to go to the vote in the referendum, the Yes vote was slipping in the polls. An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, made an urgent and emotive pitch to voters. In an interview with Seán O Rourke on the country’s national radio station, RTE, he focused on the danger of using abortion […]
If one was to sit down and draw up a list of things related to the Coronavirus for which somebody in Ireland should be arrested and prosecuted, there are a few things you might put on it. For starters, there was the decision to allow flights from Northern Italy to keep landing in the country […]
There are few people braver, and more deserving of our thanks as a nation, than those who are getting up every morning, and going to work in Ireland’s hospitals, where they are at genuine risk of contracting a life threatening illness, and dying, in the course of trying to save the lives of others. Should […]
Look, that’s a tough headline. But it’s also objectively true. Do you remember this story we wrote here on Gript a few weeks ago? You probably don’t, so here’s a refresher: That was on March 10th. On that day, RTE’s Fergal Bowers reported the following: Department of Health has said that general visiting restrictions […]