understanding what an aunt or uncle is

in order to try and understand what i mean by my post heading i will try to dream back and think back to the times i spent and enjoyed my relatives.

i feel i need to do this in the day now of individualism, not collectivism nor community but selfie love and selfie to selfie.

the rewards of having an aunty is amazing.
let me think back and it will be such fun.

Polly - Her real name was Aileen and she had a very large nose, curved like a beak, it seems a crass pet name but she knew why she had it.
we sang 'polly put the kettle on.'  that was, worse.
But Polly being Polly behaved as Polly, quiet, intellectual, bright and brimming with kindness.
she was a tiny lady and neatly dressed.  I admired her clothes, she chose well for a woman of her generation.
her hands as i remember were small and knarled.  with pointy nails as was the style.

she lived with my grandmother, a stern individual indeed.
the two quietly lived together in i think not the most blissful harmony but they did it in grace.
Polly sat by the window of a large and imposing house.  she lay on a chaise longue and read - a lot.
her hair was styled a bit like the present Queen of england.

i walked up her long dark avenue and the first think i would try to catch a glimpse of was Polly on her chaise lounge.
my joy was great because it was a pleasure.
just a pleasure to know my Polly.

she played a large grand piano, and i lay sometimes on the floor or sometimes by a massive fire grate stoking the embers.
i was offered a glass of sherry, much too young!

but it was the times she walked over the hill at the weekends, her time to sit with my family and enjoy us, if she could.
i remember her sitting on the sofa and i would go and get close and comfortable.
she stroked my head as i lay it in her lap, and there i held still never wishing for her to go away or remove her beautiful hand.  she smelt nice, comfortable safe and loving.
I adored my aunty.
she gave me something my mother couldnt god bless her.
she gave me touch, feeling, love and consideration.

i was the last to see her alive and i went to the morgue and sat there as a young person in my twenties.
i put a daffodil into her clasped arms.  i had promised she would be alive to see them in the garden.
it wasnt to be so.
i walked away bereft and deeply wounded by her death.
i never wanted it to happen.
she was to me my surrogate ma.

she snuck up once when i was in bed on christmas day.  there i was halluncinating from glandular fever.  i could hardly see a thing and i then saw my Polly, she came into me and i was dazed.  she didnt say alot but just that she had come to pull a cracker with me, so i didnt feel left out.
she sat beside me, i am sure we talked.

she gave me my first record.  An EP with goldilocks and the three bears on one side and i cinderella on the other, stories being recited.
Dad had carried me downstairs wrapped up in a heavy blanket, sick again, during summer time.
i went beside my aunty and lay as i loved to and listened excitedly to a record.  all mine.

John was an Uncle.
i visited him too as he was just down the road.
not a lot i am afaid but i did.
i knew him in is elder years.  he never said much and was extremely quiet indeed.
he lived in a tiny bungalow and slightly work shy but he had a good job. at the end of his life he was very paralysed by a stroke which took out his whole side and his speech.
i felt so badly for him.

but what IS a relative and what do they mean to another in the family.

a relative is a person who can be anything other than a narky sister or parent.
they can look at a problem with completely fresh eyes and thoughts, they have no agenda, no wish for worse or better, just to be wise and helpful.
but also they can love not like a sister, brother, friend or mother.
they are not supposed to be anything like that, they are the aunty.

to talk wisely too and know that they feel equal and can relate to you well.
they may also be able t be mighty supportive and kind.

the running nephews and nieces of today are running so fast they can be in spain and portugal and uk all in the same month.
when we were young we never got out at all.
but to the runners for fun really there is plenty at home.
the joy of travel is but transitory. it is fun.  it isnt solid sense and stalwart reliables.
the aunty can be there.
to speak freely with and to.  and the aunty doesnt tell porkies, doesnt tell others, just relates in a different and willing style.

Now what about that Aunty?

the aunty misses her nephews and neices.
because relatives do that.
they had grown up in an era of community and benevolence when all shared thoughts, goals and feelings and even if the parental home was harmful the aunts home wasnt nor the grans

missing your older aunty now for the young ones is missing a slice of who you are and where you came from.
that picture of roundedness and completeness.

to understand that a living individual who is your relative loves you must be wonderful.
the relative too, may be a maiden aunt.  with no children of her own and divorced from family life almost entirely.
lonliness can be deeper without the sense of who you are nd to see your young relatives as in the nephews and neices and their children.
to always be around a yung person is the order of the day.
to me the fear of loss that the present young generation are shoring up for themselves is everyone's duty.
to be a friend of an aunty is different but no different to a sister or brother.
and all aunties need that link, no matter what.

I walked automatically up the garden path to my aunti and her mother.
i met them both with glee and promise
i filled up with joy.

the same could happen, but i see my family rarely.
i feel lost and waiting to die
its never nice to be this alone.

but for the nephew and neice who do exist, i never keep thehe door not opened

my path to the door and that window seat is not nearly as long and arduous as to my old aunty and granny.
come visit son and daughter, for that really who they are, just someone elses' and mine on loan for that time i have to offer the different perspective and offer a laugh and a bit of relative relaxation.

but sometimes son come armed with a spanner or a spade, i am not young and i am unwell.
i would welcome you open arms.
lay the spade down aside and the coffee will be brewed, i do a good one.
i shall sit and listen and we can face each other kindly as we have done, but not often.

its not a waste of your day.
it a bonus to your day and your experience.
the fading of youth will come to you as well, no matter how long you try to prolong it.
unless the bonds of family are made one day you will sit and suddenly say'oh shit' there is no one i can really speak to this about.
when that time comes you are near the end.
when that time comes then the aunty can be at her best believe it or not.

curiosity will take over.
the eyes will wander and also away from your difficulties.

the aunt can have a coffee and a bit of cake.

i met a HSE official yesterday- i met pain and tears today

it was a tough meeting with a top level official of the HSE.
it was arranged by my local TD and neighbour Simon Harris  and i am grateful for that.

but as many commentators said to me afterwards, lets see 'the delivery' after such a meeting before you decide whether you can truly say you either like them or are going to trust them.

i liked her.
but i have been warned again today 'we are dealing with a large organization'

we also have to remember that the Organization in question is dubious.
but its all we have.
and not all are rotten to the core, though i doubt we will ever know who we can trust and who we can
but certainly some retain that belief they had when they went into healthcare that they could make a difference to sick people.

today my mood went into 'free fall.'
it was pissing down outside so it didn't help.

another organision rang me with almost a contemptuous voice and i got terribly upset.

she tries to help as best she can i think

once my friends i didn't have all this.
what i had was LIFE as you know it and others know it and as my twin once knew it.

why does it all change when you become sick and getting sicker.
why do the carers care the least.
why do the family run in the opposite direction.
and why too does no one bother to see PAIN, as if its infectious.

i think by meeting up with a chronically ill person can put things in perspective and build up personal trust that if this ever happened you you could do it well, you could be a decent sickie or even a better sickie but living and learning means you will have to meet and learn from being around at least one sickie.
the feeling of us as having nothing to offer is bullshit.
for  the healthy we remind people of our fraility.
we ask them to question their lives and also to consider one word which is vital.

what is my life
what is the purpose.

i see i didnt have all of my front teeth so this wasnt yesterday but a while back they crawled all over methey do not now as rarely i am able for this type of thing, i get far too tired and too much pain asks these friends even to just be a little away but not too far

if i have now gone over nine years with no living at all then why should i end in this awful stuck grove of pain and fraught relationships simply because a state organisation and its one of its members wronged me and i find myself living anywhere but where i should be because of them.
she was a nice lady but the ones above are the people who drive home policy and it can be cold and uncaring as right now the hse is so bothered about the cost cutting its not selective what they are doing
in saying all this, i hate being sick.

Meaningfulness, Happiness and the HSE

I am hopeful a time will come when this organisation will be just one of the many things i have to deal with.
I am hopeful a time will come when my personal life isn't consumed by the HSE, dictated by the HSE and tortured by the HSE.

Killiney Hill - where i walked with my Dad from a young age, this is my "Spiritual Home"
this is where i feel really good and at one with God

When i look from the top of the world, i AM on top of the world!
Killiney Hill to Dun Laoghaire and Howth - and all between
my Land-MY HOME!

i do not use the word torture lightly.
remember i am an educated lady realising torture in the world today is endemic.  I am not so lacking in empathy that my experiences are on a power to Syria, Isis, Palestine nor any other war torn country.
that said, its as equal to be told 'thank your blessings, you could be...' or 'you look well, think of those who have .....disease'
the latter sentence is futile in responding to distress.

I am educated enough to know, we live in a vacuum to a degree as we each try to live out our lives where we were intended to be, in my case the Ireland of today.
therefore all things relative, my experience of torture is...the HSE.

this is relevant to me as any other nation has their own troubles.
but its not the same type of torture, its just relevant to issues of the individual in any present time and space, country and age.

I am tortured

I see a time i will walk again - with a powered "all terrain" wheelchair.
I see this time as being 'Allowed' to live again

but i see a time when i will not be tortured but free.

Lets use another analogy here.  I feel i am placed on Robin Island.
i am not in a box of a cell but i am in a cell placed in no mans land to me.
i am here because i was shot at.  that isn't easy, to be removed from all i had loved dearly and could reach nearly if i was this sick and unable to do anything other than  a fifteen minute drive to a given destination and take out a fab wheelchair and throttle along environments that meant the world to me.

instead i am on this island that if i got into the van i would have to think carefully.  to get any where 'meaningful' for a person who receives the voice and soul from the environment i would have to drive some distance first.
i am not well enough to do this.

Meaning in life means far more than happiness, oh no this was alerted to me by a post on the faithful facebook a loved and hated medium.
but meaning is to me, to engage with familiarity and goodness and to have a purpose and be a useful, giving human being.

not being on an island hoping and waiting to return to my place, that place where the soul laps in the waves and sounds and rebounds in memories, cherished land of a spiritual ideal, for an individual who laps up life through familiar places, sounds and the people i knew well.

some find retirement and downsizing to a different county not easy but are able for it.
their ways of getting that meaning is actually through all they had done through before, usually family, friendships and maybe reading, the garden a bit of walking and a bit of socialising.

i have none of these.
i engaged in the land on a higher level because the 'human' was not there for me.
i engaged in empathy on a greater level with strangers who were disadvantaged or similar because sometimes people do this not so much to compensate but because the 'feeling of empathy is far greater if you do not have the distraction of family, friendships and your own kit and kin.

being who you are is pretty much dictated by who you are, the person you are but also by choice.

you chose to live a certain way.
if you are inclined to be greedy from an early age you will usually have this as your life path by choice, few turn from that and begin a life of gaining and destroying, some do not do it in wild ways such as our friend from Waterford whispers, but some do it in that subtle way within small groups and even within family.
but charge ahead for the moolah and they will and suppress all they need to they will.

to me, to earn money didn't come that easily.
i was an artist in the 70's and a troubled one.
so money wasn't the attachment i had and i never did really, for money was not around when growing up.
attaining a place in society, an attachment to people was a necessary and when i drifted far from the people i gain more from the land.

but now another wondrous thing about me being, i am a survivor.
none would fully appreciate this unless you were faced with a wall of aggression and repression and none would find it deep within unless they are that survivor.
i am it, and i only realised this when faced with the oppressor.
the HSE.

talent and belief in yourself are all discoveries by experiences.
did i ever think for a minute that i would reach outside that lonely box of just a studio and a dog to buy a home, engage with architect, solicitors, surveyors when all told me i was good for nothing, no.
did i ever think that i would be able to manage an independent life without the forces of medicine shoring me up forever daily, no i didn't.
i did not know who i was until i had crohns surgery and nearly died.

i did not know i was so brim full of strength until i faced the HSE demanding i do things that i intrinsically knew in my heart were wrong and i didn't want to do.
designing my home to the plan of a HSE official anonymous to this day was not something i took lightly.
i fought back.
but to fight in this manner was not something i was born to do.
i am a peaceful person.
i do not like it, so when i say i need my meaningful life and times back, i sincerely mean, i need it

but when the HSE consume your every moment on paper, in voice, in letters, emails and meetings, i need to fight the demon and start to re-enter that zone that i fully realise i can be a better person and a more useful person to society.

the fight of the HSE is demeaning, soul destroying and perverse.
unless the HSE begin to understand their own brief in history and in ideology we are on collision course and everyone who is hurt by the HSE is also.

remember the HSE fully know that the dynamic they engage in is familiar to them, but also its familiar to everyone else too.
they can have the Legal department which must cost millions a year to have because more and more people are facing up to their personal damage by the hse.
the HSE know that to make sure that they are protected they need this legalise, because the hurt, the wounded and the betrayed and destroyed are facing them daily in a discourse they never knew they would have to engage in.
but now they have to face one fact.
THE EMPEROR IS WEARING NO CLOTHES
...and OLIVER IS IN THAT CORNER AND WILL PUT UP HIS BOWL TO THE JOWLS OF THE OFFICIAL AND SAY, 'PLEASE SIR,'
and more besides.

I cannot be the person who can partake in a meaningful way in life if the HSE is 'in my face' in such an abhorrent way.
i must disengage from the war.
the fight.
i have a few meetings shortly with this organisation from utter hell.
i ask all who are kindly out there who read my blog to think of me and pray for me in the next few months.
i will be away in a hospital in a different country for a while, with a rare disease i need this too.
i will be back again for - the HSE in a huge encounter after ten years of unrelenting disagreeable engagement with the HSE.
i also meet hopefully in peace and good will with a high official shortly and this has to be placed where it is, non aggression and with all the faith i have in myself and others to successfully have a meeting that sees an empathic engagement of acknowledgement of hurt and damage and then to see the 'person' that person who was a singular, lonely isolated figure who tried to help others within their own community.

the idea of this meeting is to express part of who i am, not the perception others have of me but the real Ann with her whole unhappy life but a fulfilled life, a meaningful life.
i want the HSE to take no more from me and my chances to be who i rightfully should be, a giver to others, not an aggressor to a large organisation who soul destroys at the first chance it gets.

we of course are not speaking of those working on the ground immediately in the community.
they are as beaten down as their clients, i feel this.
we are talking of managers, organisational operators who dictate.
who never understand sickness and hardly ever hit it.

I want to laugh with the fishermen again.
i want to watch the seals eat the scraps they throw down by the steps at Bullock Harbour, where my mother took me to buy fish for the Catholic Fridays'

blessed be them that fight the good fight and win.
blessed be them that know their strength and what their life has meant and where they will find meaningfulness within it, even with a life shortening illness, the purpose is to do give til the end for that is my purpose and i see the rest as utterly meaningless.

When i return to my home i shall be creative - do what i am best at doing, peaceful calm and space in my head for better thingand pray to god i get home quickly to where i belong, Dun Laoghaire, my soul land without a doubt my soul land.

when i am home again i shall sit there quietly and dream of what once was and think back only as a dream on 'the cruelty visited upon me, when i was captured in entirety by a very large health care organisation.
i shall swiftly remember ah, but I am home again and shall be in peace once more

Disablist = racism = abuse of power = HSE and continent.

i have indeed strung all these words together.
it has to be said that to ignore, downgrade and dehumanise those who are disabled and sick in such a manner is pretty much what we felt we were moving away from after the era of extermination in the gas chambers of the last war.
i felt we had realised something after the shocking stories that came out of those camps.
it is true, the Jews were exterminated but so too were vast swathes of sectors of society Hitler felt were 'useless eaters.'
these include the intellectually challenged, the sick, the elderly, the disabled and the mentally ill.
alongside that, they attempted to wipe out the Roma populations of Europe, a ghastly fact we have yet  to recognise, Millions of Roma were trundled off to be exterminated.
we do not hear much about all of these groups.

self promotion of ghastly deeds done to a group and religious nation is explaining this.
who can afford really to speak loudly for the 'useless eaters' and the least powerful groups in society.
There was no one.
There remains no one.

We now see a re-emergence across  the modern world of one major fact.  Those who are the bottom of the ladder are being blamed for society's ills - all over again.

we do not consider gambling and extortion, fraudulent dealings, and spending billions upon billions just in the hope that a gamble will pay dividends a reason to blame bankers, politicians and corporate governance and groups a crime against humanity.
When it didn't go as planned with all of these crooks a good few countries were brought to its knees and went down including USA, Europe but mostly the smaller players in Europe we see then emergence of austerity and blame, just as in the Second World War.
since this recent global depression where the sick were denied services, the disabled were being forced back into the institutions job lot, the ill and the learning disabled were denied health care and education we see it happening all over again.
since the global depression we see the gap widen between rich and poor, ALL OVER THE WORLD.

Money is being diverted away to personal accounts, group accounts and payments to public servants like never before.
so when our ministers get up to 500k a year and top ups over and above that, the poor and low workers have been granted a pay increase in Ireland of - wait for it - 50c.

Still we see that the sick and the disabled have remained below the poverty line.
we are being forced to pay more for just about everything on a fixed disability pension and it simply cannot be done.
services such as transport to the hospitals have been stopped.
the transport grant stopped and our government said they would bring in something fairer, it never happened.
tax allowances on petrol for disability vans and cars all stopped.

medicine costs have gone through the roof and some are not taking vital prescribed drugs due to cost.
Adaptive aids are least likely now to be given to the sick and the disabled.
That is bath chairs and wheelchairs.
Two items seriously close to my heart.

Alongside  of all of this we have what i consider the worst. - The abuse of power.
the HSE for instance can now actually vilify a sick and disabled person without any justification, seemingly without the need to justify it and will keep this up for ever, of course the one thing the HSE as an organization find it hard to do - 'own responsibility and sort the mess' -they have and are creating!
they are in true denial of what they do in the name of health care.
we are talking here of course of health care.

but only health care for the least well off.

NO individual in Ireland who can afford health insurance can expect to be treated so badly as those in the public system.
this is FACT.
those on insurance will say this is not true and come out with such statements as 'its not much better in the Private sector.'  Excuse me madam it very much IS better in the private sector!

you cannot even have examinations done that normally before the crash you could have.
you cannot have extra blood exams done, similarly you cannot request them as a patient with intelligence to do this again you are speaking above your station.
the slap from any consultant is that look of distain of the horror of Oliver who asked for more.

we are a sad society that neglects its ill and disabled.
its not considered a society if it does but a corporate business for one aim only to control the masses and accrue as  much money from the masses and more besides as they can.
they are creating elitism, conservatism and abuse of power.

No where can it be seen more than through extreme right movements and the extremism in the world today.
They just consider all groups who our outside their little cliches to be causing the problems in each country and yet its not so.

the sick the disabled and the poor have never managed to gain a vast capitol, they have never managed to do shady deals and bankrupt anyone least alone their own country.

most try to live on what they have, settle for less and cope by extended family giving a hand.

but not the shower at the top who are creaming it off and blaming us all at the bottom for being so expensive.
when it fact they are the ones who are overly expensive.

what has happened me for instance as a sick and disabled person is that this begging for crumbs from the table has cause vast abuses of power from the HSE, which basically are given free rein to do anything they like.  ask the Minister for Health, he isn't in charge of health, the HSE is.

Therefore with no governmental control the who organization has run wild in an absence of good governance and incompetency.
they are out of control.

we have no means either to protest.

there is no forum where justice can be sought in Ireland if you have a grievance about the HSE.
those who fight back will suffer major health decline as i have.

those who fight back will  lose sleep, cry a lot, eat badly, get exhausted quickly and do nothing as the despondency and depression is like that noose around your neck.

you will be slandered and dehumanised, and made to feel a vile individual.

you will also be targeted with insinuations that you are mad, mentally ill, psychologically 'loose in the head, ' anything but, for them to take responsibility and sort the mess.

they will increase your healthcare needs and one major one now being this -  i have no idea how to get my life back on track.
i have no idea how to transcend the demons of nightmares over the HSE and the lack of sleep.  Years of insomnia pain, weeping and depression - ALL hastening my decline in health.

words fail me on how i will ever be the same again after meeting the HSe when becoming ill.
i have no idea if my life will ever be called 'a life worth living' again.
i will attempt to go for it and try.
but my exhaustion, decline in health and feelings of despondency are great.

one thing for sure - i will fight for the sick, the disabled and the least well off.

and on a further note i beg my readers to sign the petition set up by my twin sister Dr. Margaret Kennedy.
its a fact we are only one of about two or three countries in Europe who have failed to Ratify the Rights of the disabled under the UN convention of the rights of people with a disability.
so if you really feel it and feel we must stop this rot i beg you to take a while and call in on this site and sign, that we are equal to everyone else and we deserve equal treatment.  we must ratify the convention of the rights of those who are disabled, so that we can be considered equal and not have the HSE do what it is doing, running wild over the vulnerable lives, of people with a disability.
thank you.
see below----------------------

http://www.change.org/p/irish-government-enda-kenny-republic-of-ireland-government-ratify-un-convention-on-human-rights-for-disabled-people

In this blighted house: Values, Hopes, Ambitions of the HSE in Ireland. 20...

my sister has written a worthy blog, true to form, we do not give up.



please read, please share and please support the fight against the wrongs that are so obvious to the sick and disab led in ireland

In this blighted house: Values, Hopes, Ambitions of the HSE in Ireland. 20...: Yesterday forms that my consultant filled out to ask that myself and twin go to the UK were acceptable.  Today they are NOT. He has to fil...

are we dealing with Healthcare or Politics around healthcare or the young, name it?

i am exceedingly alarmed today.
here is why.

yesterday the minister for health states that he thinks we can afford to offer all under 18's fee gp care.
HUH?
We couldn't afford free healthcare to the under 6's!

this is a political football to me, as we approach an election the youth and young are those  to grab right now, and of course the mothers and fathers of young children.

but this isn't healthy at all!
most of these children are HEALTHY!

we have to put the money where it is needed so badly, its needed where there is sickness, vulnerability and disability.
not into the people who as young are by virtue of this fact HEALTHY and cared for.

we have exceptions and we know that, thats not rocket science.

I ask you to observe for a moment what happens actually the unwell and disabled who are now presently reaching school leaving age or have done so.
they get specialist schooling and special care for all of those years, but once they reach 18th they are now on their own, in every sense of the word, and so too are their parents.

the learning disabled and intellectually challenged leaving school now as adults, there are few places for them to go, less educational opportunities and even less employment opportunities, they still need care, they still need occupation and they still need a good standard of living.

many are facing looking at television 24/7 because there is no placements available for vocational training, school hours are over, they are the lost souls in a system that doesn't cater for them.
parents may have other children, may have a job, may not.
what is to be done for the child turned to the age of reason who is not able due to disability find a place in society or be sheltered in some shape or form within society?

because of cut backs many if not all supports have been eroded or gone in that bracket.
so we can afford now to give free healthcare to every child under 18's?

Let us look at Nursing home care right now.
daily we hear of housing for the elderly who are in residential care, most of the buildings are massive, old, dangerous, ill equipted, sad, dreary and unacceptable as a place for a dog let alone an older person who would have given to society.

the HSE now has ear marked hundreds of millions to upgrade these buildings, start building and renovation programmes and again keep the elderly there, basically under lock and key because i tell you for an elder to wander out is forbidden!

yet for every older person put into a nursing home, the cost to keep them in the community is a mere third of the cost to keep them in a nursing home yearly.
the cost per head, in residential nursing home care if they have no funds or capital, costs the state over 80k each a year.
this is unsustainable.
this on top of having to upgrade all the buildings, provide better care and quality care when the best quality care there is is to keep someone in their own home, with supports.

those who cannot manage in their own homes are usually those who are too sick to and will need residential care but this is a very small proportion of elderly and disabled.
in fact the vast majority of people in irish nursing homes right now need minimum to medium support services.
so why are they in these places?

when 'they say' that community care cannot be provided because they haven't got the money is balls i say, we should be saying, the money is there but is being diverted to upgrade ancient buildings and infrastructure and also staff  within a building, whereas, let these places just be sold off and move forward the original plan, community care, and help them have a quality of life and a far healthier life at home!

it could be provided at a fraction of the cost.
so why are we not going down this route?
by the way this is KNOWN within the circles of healthcare, this isn't hidden from all who are running the show, they know it!
so why isn't it being done?

Minimum support and medium supports mean simply that.
dressing, washing, cooking and keeping home and a bit of shopping and getting the prescriptions and making sure they take meds etc.
maximum care is an entirely different thing.

One hour home help a day can allow the individual to be dressed, have their bed made, the home kept well and some shopping as alternative to maybe that wash and a meal cooked or several days as an alternative to that shopping so we see that a routine can be built up around all of this.

i have no idea what or where the education and the intelligence lies for it is basic common sense.
but we do KNOW this, because if you have not the education or intelligence to know it, they have been told this, from the consultants in the hospitals to the geriatricians all across the land!

we have a problem.
its not money, its how its used and where its put that is the problem.
the HSe has also a massive workforce a lot of whom could be done without, because we have doubling up all over the place and this isn't the main players, the community professionals are run off their feet, they should stay, most of the managers should go, so too should the burocracy and by upgrading the IT systems would be money well spent and release even more for the much needed care of the sick, where the money should be.

But again they KNOW this, so why isn't it being done?

we have brought in ten per cent more managers in the past two years i believe and yet the HSE is still running up enormous overruns, so there is something dysfunctional in management.
there is utter chaos.
if you put in a manager who is not fit for the job we have whats called 'the peter principle'
this my friends works like this.
its not how good you are but how long you have been in a job.

you may be a very good nurse, but you may be a bloody lousy manager!
but if you have been in the job long enough you will get to be a manager or you get to be a complaints officer, which is worse and everyone in the HSE is a complaints officer by virtue of being in the hse, go onto the website of the HSE in your local area and look at who is a complaints officer.
so not only are they expected to do the full whack of a job of investigating complaints (which they have no training in and have no expertise 'I AM AN OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST  ffs!' is the reality.

we recently saw a person moving from decades in mental health and children move to the post of a disability manager, well less than a year into it she isn't any more.
i bet she was very overwhelmed and didn't know where she had landed up in because to be honest to be suddenly put in charge of an area managing the disability portfolio after all your life working in mental health is a whole different ball game.
if you do not know how to roll a bandage, make a sling, diagnose cellulitis on a leg or ever dressed a sprained ankle then you cannot ever hope to understand far greater problems within the physical and sensory disability fields, in order to 'manage' all that that involves.
this makes absolute sense but again they SHOULD know this.

maybe that person felt she could do with a change, maybe it was a promotion.
well its not helpful to do this to the disability sector.

regarding how we try and inform next the general population of the farce that is management within the HSE, i hope this blog goes some way to inform.
the frigthening thing being, when an 18yr old sees they will get free gp care and their parents see this, thats a big woopsie a freebie for our taxes and yet the understanding then that ACTUAL sick suffer if this occurs isn't understood or isn't believed.

it should be, its reality, you cannot spend something on healthy people in an economically stressed society and healthcare system and expect that the sick be provided with care as well because what it means to budget means something has to give.
if the political farce coming up to election is to make many vibrant people happy, voting people happy by doing this , they will do it, at the cost of the care of the elderly, the sick and the disabled.  The just gone 18 intellectually disabled left at home bored out of their tree and the parents at their wits end.
you cannot see it any other way.
this is reality.
its not nice to say the last statement of fact...IT IS WRONG TO ELECTIONEER AND PLAY WITH SICK PEOPLE'S LIVES, ITS IMMORAL AND WRONG AND THERE ISN'T ANY OTHER WAY TO SEE THIS.
by trying to grab the votes of the upwardly mobile you are giving pain to an even greater number of people, the sick, elderly, challenged, mentally ill, disabled and sensory deprived and very ill people as well.

i hope that people will begin to become political animals and work for the very country they preport to love and belong to by saying what i believe is the truth, this isn't the way we work our healthcare system which was devised to care for  - WAIT FOR IT....THE SICK!

activist on the irish health system and expert!

it is important to say that i am an activist.

its important, important to say there are good people who are the owls and the peregrines around.

it is also important to say i am both the peregrine falcon and the owl.
my eyes are extremely good and my talons sharp, like the rat that got caught out in my garden by this magnificent beast the peregrine.

meat is necessary for nourishment, meat is vital to life, the sharpness and alertness warns you both of food and danger.
you have to be both as a sick individual in the irish healthcare system.

we have an owl and peregrine alright and the talons are sharp, very sharp.

when policy is written in ireland, its written.
it doesn't mean more than that.
we do not 'do' action very well, we can not do action at all well.
the meat seems not necessary and the bird is not hungry enough to sharpen them claws, to fine tune and stave off hunger.

the direct opposite is true of the patient.
the awareness, the complete turning of head is absolutely crucial for being sick, the talons may have worn down by illness and disease, but activist mode will keep that which is left, sharp as a knife and will wound like hell the lack-lustre.

my allegories are sharp today ann.

i am vulture mode.
we are a useless set of feckers in this country and the way we observe and also treat health is about as diseased as it can get.
why does no one at all care about healthcare here?
why are we letting the starvation of care (meat catching) happen?
its a conspiracy of the well and the affluent.

otherwise them talons will sharpen pretty swiftly if you get sick here.
its a nasty disease this one, the lack of care.
its a disease of birds flying every which way and are getting confused about which species they belong to, but right now most are ostriches, and most are flightless, eggits.

we are laying bare a situation that is frightening because we have reached that point of almost no return, when systems fail to such a degree the atmosphere hots up and we cannot claw our way back to expertise on a wing and a prayer.
todays Irish Independent shows that a lady being wooed back to do nursing simply said, 'no thanks, your backward.'
this is the reality no one seems to be waking up to in Ireland and no one cares.

did you know that once upon a time the community had a surveilance scheme for the nursing care staff in the community.
this was to keep an eye on all the elderly in a catchment area, this is no more.
instead they have a social worker dealing full time with elder abuse.
but this is a danger after the fact.
if you do not carry out surveillance you are mopping up the mess of abuse after it has occurred.

how much involvement is your primary care nurse in children's healthcare needs and at what stages of life.
well all under a certain age are watched like hawks by the nurses, then more then 800 can be on the list for part time staff or job sharing staff, they also have to do the eye testing in the schools and probably the hearing also.
they also may be involved in vaccination screening and monitering.

with staff shortages where the hell do they find the time to deal with the rest of society.
what happens when the under 6's scheme comes in, how much actual time can be clawed back in for the other vulnerable groups and not the healthy?

when we look at what we have right now its clear.
very clear.
the top of the pyramid has ordered the following or this is the way i see it as i observe, remember like the owl, the head turns on its axis and is casing the joint so to speak.

the HSE has now been told to recycle just about everything.
i heard of a case of a guy, young with cerebral palsy using a HSE frame had to go buy his own, why? the rollator lost a wheel and it ditched i guess, and the guy alongside.
this necessitated a risk assessment.
well i lost a wheel off a powered wheelchair, and i went into a wall.
i didn't even get a query if i was ok, let alone a risk assessment.
but i got an assessment of the banger alright.
it was 11yrs old, had no suspension coils, a lot of duct tape and wheels put on with the wrong bolts.

so thats the money side of equipment.
in this area we have no social worker, except for the elder abuse.
we have no psychologist except a counselling service where you get a blast of twelve sessions and then you can commit that suicide.   i kid you not!
we have no OT in this area
no OT manager, just a half a one.

we have tail chasing and crash courses, and mop up jobs all over the place.
there ain't no system at all.

just don't spend money, don't employ staff, don't answer phones, don't provide.

now this is an interesting one too.
you cannot advocate within the HSe.
that is you cannot create a fuss if you feel a client is in need, you cannot sort of say its all wrong and blah blah blah and you cannot have a meltdown on behalf of a client, you cannot write a report of your own it has to go through managers and the legal department, you cannot allow the HSE to be caught out.
you have to keep the 'family' ethos mafiosi style.
you simply lay low do that little job and do not rock the boat.
the morale is at an all time low and the pressures are great.

i am not to believe they cannot be sacked.
they can actually and they can be got rid of if they speak out of turn, do not tow the party line, that is 'whip whip' style.
you can be accused of being not fit for the job or purpose, there you go, you are sacked.

this isn't care, this isn't a health service, this isn't nice nor morally just or correct.
i laugh when i see on their websites, 'the client usually knows more about their own condition therefore you must be open to them and must ask them 'is there anything i can do for you.'
well what they say behind close doors seems to be 'do feck all and shut up and just get on donkey style and do nada'.
we have to do this, they say.

a strange juxaposition of shoes far too painful to wear as i load my wheelchair in wooly slippers and where do i load my wheelchair, at the house of power, which is over riding expenditure on healthcare.

no this isnt mongolia nor is it the buckingham palace, its the senead and a room adjacent to the bar.

we have to save on the budgets, see.

this isnt a bar stool, but i may come crashing, this my friend is my sofa and disabled people once were able to get 'sofa risers' to help them get out of them, but no not here anymore so what do i use - nhs bed risers, which my twin had left over from living in the UK.  we are seriously endangered as a species.

so do nada
again my friend do not worry too much about the stats, that is information on expenditure, they mean nothing, they are makie uppie, yes they are makie uppie.
this is being told by the universities, 'ah sure that means nothing, doesn't make sense, its all made up as they go along.

so is this a care system.
no its called the famous lipstick gloss, its glossy nothing and people's lives are in danger.
this i mean seriously, we are off the watch and people are suffering so badly it beggars belief there isn't war on the streets about the relatives and friends being so denied even basic healthcare across the divides, of community care, mental health, emergency healthcare as in A'E and specialities, and major operations and cancer and neurological illness and degenerative diseases.

 i will leave you with a piece of knowledge called 'meat' that is worth digesting because once that bit is in there the belly the hunger demands more and will hopefully pull the wool away from your eyes, sharpen the talons and grease up the neck muscles.

can i borrow your rolls for a few days, this thing is fucked?

here it is.
according to Prof. Orla Hardiman, there are more neurologists in Mongolia then there is in the Repulic of Ireland.
Now thats sort of numbing isnt it?
how many of you knew that yesterday was "international brain awareness day"  ah sure i barely did, i was conked out with exhaustion with a neurodegenerative disease so rare they haven't a clue what is going wrong.
but hey i got a diagnosis, of sorts, yes i can declare i have mitochondrial disease and i am fucked.
why, because its not what the HSE have down as a disease!
they only have the ones they know.
so this should be fun as to where we go with this knowledge.
we can forget that there is new policy guidelines now launched for Rare diseases in ireland.
i will be dead before that policy is ever implemented.  its only about how to find out where and what the rare diseases are, thats all, we are only at that stage in life for medicine, one is CF by the way and we are a country with the hightest per capita in the world.
but like 'vision for change' which was brought out as a working policy 15yrs ago, well its still a vision, like everything else.  Its gone no where but gathering dust in the NDA which will tell you all about it but wont tell you its dead as a dodo.
you have a right to fear in ireland, you really do.
i just hope you don't get too sick cos reality hits very hard so it does.

the irish 'outer mongolia' healthcare bareness