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 […]
The Minister for Health, Simon Harris, appeared to contradict the official advice given by the HSE on abortion pill provision during a debate on the Emergency Measures legislation in the Dáíl yesterday. Sinn Feín and left-wing TDs including Bríd Smith and Paul Murphy had sought amendments to the emergency legislation which would permit a doctor or nurse to […]
An incisive observation from Robert Burke on the twitter machine, here: https://twitter.com/robertburke84/status/1242750630592229376 He’s both right that the Irish Government has done a complete one hundred and eighty degree u-turn on testing in the space of seven days, and that the rest of the media seems unwilling to question it. More on the latter point in […]
The President of the Irish Health Consultants Association (IHCA) has written to Health Minister, Simon Harris, because of reports of “widespread shortages” of protective clothing and equipment for frontline heath workers. However, the HSE confirmed that new stock had been ordered and was on its way. A report in today’s Sunday Business Post reveals that Dr Dónal O’Hanlon wrote […]
The HSE has disputed a “fake news” message making the rounds on WhatsApp about the covid-19 virus. The message claims that using drugs like difene and ibuprofen makes covid-19 symptoms worse, and proposes the use of physiotherapy as a treatment for the disease. It claims to be supported by a “specialist” at Cork University Hospital. […]
Several GPs have criticised Health Minister Simon Harris following what they call “misleading” comments he made on RTÉ’s Prime Time regarding the covid-19 virus. Referring to the virus, which has infected at least 61 people on the island of Ireland and claimed its first death on Irish soil last night, the Fine Gael health minister […]