In this blighted house: Coming Home To Ireland

In this blighted house: Coming Home To Ireland: For 42 years I lived away from Ireland. I left in 1972 as many young Irish girls did...to go nursing in Great Ormond Street Children's H...



this is my twin sisters blog today, just after the high jinks of celebrating our national day of loving ireland to bits and back.

Loving Ireland, loving being Ireland is not the same as 'caring ireland, and caring for the irish nation, its vastly different to be fantastical about OIRISH around the world to being in the midst of the hard, painful grind of living it and being in it.

its torture.

A collective initiative is needed as in a case against Ireland and its human rights against people who are sick,disabled and poor.  we have a major HUMAN RIGHTS issue, even on the european commissions site by all european standards we are dragging our heels to bring human rights to Ireland and Ireland is the last to even acknowledge we owe it to the citizens to uphold human rights values, because their actions are against everything that is central to human rights in what we or they, (enda Kenny, acting taoiseach stated in the Dail) 'we are a modern society.  PUKE stuff.



we also do not seem to have it in us to fight back, this appalls me that we take this on the chin, because the suffering is immense and all stand by and leave the most vulnerable unsupported.

this fact too is recognised in europe and we have been hauled over the coals about the measures Ireland took to deprive its citizens their human rights but what next.



where is the collective thinking and outcry, you cannot expect things to change unless you are prepared to stand up and fight for change, and you cannot expect to do it alone, if Europe can admonish us for our human rights violations and dragging of heels, why is it not entering the fray to support the vulnerable, are we not in the EU together?  and have we not handed over OUR money to YOUR banks in central Europe?



we have, and yet you name our suffering and do nothing about it at all.

we have a Europe that isnt working as it should.

a Europe only intent of helping a few, not intent on upholding what was once known as 'society'

i feel ashamed and equally sad at the end of my life, to think that whilst we celebrate 100yrs of what was called tyranical oppression, we are now in the depths of both oppression from the inside, and oppression from Europe, we should be calling for the 'second revolution'  not celebrating the first.



sure after the first, things started going all down hill again.  nothing improved for the Irish here.  to day even more are leaving than ever before and those left behind are oppressed.

ANN AND MARGARET KENNEDY INTERVIEW

i contacted the European Ombudsmans about my treatment in Ireland by the HSE

today i again wrote to the european ombudsman's office.

i wrote explaining further about the way i have been treated and continue to be treated by the Irish Healthcare system, in the community.

without restraint, without censure, without following any of their own guidelines, the HSE is law unto itself.

it consistently gets it wrong.
it blames patients for being in distress rather than help a person in distress.
in fact so isolated from their client base, they willingly call the police for a presenting distressed older women rather than hand a cup of tea out and calm a very sick person.

its not usual behaviour to call the police on old sick women.
there is something very evil by any healthcare system that does so, therefore i call it draconian and uneducated.
what more i intend to take this further.
i will fight the HSE tooth and nail for all the damage they have visited upon myself and my dear twin sister.

its outrageous, that we are celebrating 100yrs of 'liberation' for being oppressed, yet in this country of mine, we are being oppressed.
there are those in ireland who are treated very badly from our healthcare services.
because we have no healthcare service, what we have is so abusive.

we have spending on health through the roof and yet we can do no more than deliver a dangerous service, known to be dangerous and when the HSE are shown up for what they are, they will target you more, like a criminal.

this is happening in the most oppressed 'liberated' state i have had any experience with.

there is one person who will not be celebrating our 100 years of liberation.
i feel disappointed and ashamed to call myself Irish.
i am ashamed of my country, the government and the people in power who abuse others and their own citizens, who they are entrusted to care for.

you wont get that here.
far too many people are in a similar boat to myself.
far too many.
i want the world to understand, we are not being supported by europe to become more responsible how we treat our own.
we should be severely admonished for human rights violations right across the board, from the elderly, the sick, the frail, the disabled and the vulnerable.

i hope i live long enough to see justice been done for all who suffer at the hands of the HSE.
i have to say, they are worse that the mafia at how well they seem to target those least able to defend themselves. and do so in a hideous fashion with no feelings or empathic thought about the harm they do physically, psychologically and mentally on the members of society they are entrusted to care for.

In this blighted house: The complainer is mad, the complained about is san...

In this blighted house: The complainer is mad, the complained about is san...: In order to have your needs met in Ireland you must become a 'professional' in disability, health, law and advocacy!  You can no lon...

this is an excellent blog and i know full well what my twin sister is referring to here.

to look at the brown files is testament to the amount of energy they use in defending their position.  this isnt about healthcare, it never apparently was, as professors have even said the HSE is about managing money, not a healthcare system for sick and frail people.

if they have to justify anything at all, they have a complete and fully operational legal department all to itself, there they spend thousands of your money constructing legal defense in case its needed, and no letter seems sent out to the community unless overseen by a legal entity to make damn sure the position they hold on any perverse behaviours can be legally construed as viable - a whitewash in other words.



they also manage to call you everything under the sun and yet write to you and request strongly that you refrain from speaking about members of the hse in that 'tone' as it can have a detrimental effect on the professional standing.

but far be it for the HSE to take its own advice because i have been attacked in defamatory statements pretty much consistently.  the consistency of it now amounts to torture, harrassment, bullying and defamation of character.

so the equal stance to rights is not even there and never was and wonder will it ever be.

take a bow my sister, we say it squarely as it is, how it happens and use intellect to challenge - is it ever right to behave so badly towards sick people?

Ireland zero medicine for the poor

it basically comes down to that!

ann and margaret Kennedy will not be stuffed artwork on in a spaceship cavern devoted to odd bits and pieces, so stuffed Ann is on the left and stuffed Margaret is on the right and we say to the Irish healthcare system - you are not going to snuff us.

if you have health insurance you are seen straight away by any consultant you wish to see.
it is smooth running, it lacks the abusive narrative that is in the public healthcare system and it lacks the delays for months even years to get some health issue sorted.

if you have a healthcare system like we do and you say nothing, do nothing and accept it, then you will have the healthcare system we have.

the system of public health care is  a positively good one.  in theory.
the best system in the world was once the NHS.

but privatizing health means those who can afford the doctors can get care, assistance, treatment, medicine and auxillary care.
those who do not have wealth or insurance have to beg for it, or in some cases scream for it.

the only way for the Irish poor to get help and care is to make it known everywhere about the situation.
mothers go on TV, they put articles in newpapers, they attempt to get care for their children.

but what upsets me the most is the 'put-downs' mostly by doctors, the managers of our HSE and the ones who feel us poor do not deserve it.

when i got sick first i was left by the doctors. there i was in that bed and left.  no one would do anything.  they are beginning the same tack now, but watched the two whacky's at the top of this blog, you wont snuff this one out or the other, for that matter!

no i did not give up.  my first OUT was to the Lupus Centre UK where i was immediately diagnosed with Sjogrens Syndrome, but more was to come, but only from outside Ireland

the abuse of power is when a sick person begs and is tossed aside.
a sick person cries and is labelled hysterical.

this is not for the feint hearted, but if you need the water for your body pain you will do it, no its not safe, but who cares.  i have been doing this for three years, until very very recently.

a chronically ill person screams, they are abusive.

what are these sick poor trying to do?
get healthcare.

no poor sick person ever wished to be enemy no 1 and never were to anyone when well.
but once sick and no help around they can be labelled as the enemy.
this happens in ireland alot.

but those with insurance sail through the process.
they do not have to face snide comments, rudeness, abusive and dismissive doctors and clinicians.

they will get 'real' physiotherapy where as the poor will get a print out.
they will get real help whereas the poor will have to prove they are sick, and that actually is harder here than can ever be imagined.

about a year ago i fell and hurt my hand, but with no bandaid or pin i found 'mito ribbons' ah sure they are grand and fancy!  and so are my two babies, Ana and Maggie - NO - they are rescue chihuahuas, rehomed a year apart and they came with their names!

you can be very sick and still not get care.

i will take every opportunity to tell my blogging readers -

the fight is on still for better wheelchairs, i am in the one which lost its wheel and i was bolted into a very hard wall, as the wheel rolled along the road in the opposite direction.

interesting piece in the newspapers, as they try to whip my wheelchair, i have other ideas - i went to the Media

it doesnt always have to be a complementary image but it will be an image with meaning - i have been through a lot in the past five years - all due to the HSE our healthcare system

my twin and i have a bit of a waltz - time moves on - its tougher now, we are sicker - BUT......

THERE IS NO WAY THE IRISH STATE, THE IRISH HEALTHCARE SYSTEM AND THE IRISH MEDICAL CONFRATERNITY IS GOING TO KILL ME OFF BECAUSE THEY FEEL I HAVE NO RIGHTS TO EQUAL HEALTHCARE.

In this blighted house: Ireland's abuse of disabled citizens

In this blighted house: Ireland's abuse of disabled citizens: In 2003 I whistle-blew abuse of learning disabled people at the Brothers of Charity Galway. after which, with prolonged lobbying by myself ...



My twin sister has written a decisive and contemplative piece on a true picture on ireland today.

remember we are now about to celebrate 100 years of freedom.



that seems to be a bit lost on myself who feels oppression, irish style is still alive and well.  we are oppressed by our own.

if you feel strong enough to say it as it is, you are blacklisted and blamed and recieve worst care than those who humbly and meekly take it on the chin.



abuse in the community through individuals in power or holding too much power without knowing their own personal and professional boundaries is rife.

they seem to have a personal belief that what they say is in fact what should be done, without any reference point other than a belief beyond their remit in the job they are in and a belief that the next in command will approve what they do and anyway even if they do not, they will be shored up and left in a position of not having to face accountability.

either way you are on to a winner.

you come down heavy on a person who is vulnerable, sick or disabled.

you realise you should not have but with the HSE they have a strange way of acting once they know wrong has been committed.

they build up the defense forces, all of them.

they do not rationally sit down and say 'i am to blame' and simply stop the act and the progression of acts against the wronged victim.

its not a difficult thing to do actually.

its a braver thing to do to admit your mistakes and learn from them than to hide behind organisations, legal teams and each other shoring up a wrong doing and one thing in being brave is, it makes you strong.

those who slidder and slide in the mud of corruption and deceit and confusion can see no clarity, no way forward, no way back but continue to slider and slide.

but to stop it is the easier action.



when sick people feel they have to place their views on a health care system because they feel strongly about it, of course we will receive the bad treatment, for that is what happens in this country.

but to make changes i believe it has to be done.

My belief is the HSE is an entity that is so big now one cannot see the dividing line between the water, the shore, the sky and the land.  no one really knows what is happening.

i would break down the hse into chunks, not districts.

there should be some areas of health not dealt with at all by the HSE.

there should be divisions with their own spending power to work for the group they support and have to be accountable to.

budgets should be made for each chunk of healthcare not taking a part of the budget when another part of care is low on funds and shifting money around and before you know it, its spent and usually in the wrong service.

such a system of shunting cash around from billy to jack is a lunacy.

you cannot manage any system in this way.

you ring fence money, you keep it there and you do not let it walk.



of power.

we have those who are crazed by power.

power corrupts.

i believe we now have systems in ireland that have become out of hand.

if its a political voice i want to hear, its those that say Ireland is a small country and should be able to manage its own.

but if you have the managers runnning amok then we have little hope for change.

i charge the political groups to name their tactics to deal with abuse of power, abuse of sick, elderly and disabled and abuse of the healthcare system for the irish people.

Nijmegen laughed about shoes, but then ireland is a disaster for healthcare

Ireland of a thousand welcomes, well it is i guess!

its a beautiful country and at present is green enough.

but under the surface there is a grimness not many have a chance to articulate and many are too bogged down in dreary toil to even try to make sense of it, let alone start a blog page cos of your personal sense of outrage.

i am tired my friends.
i am tired of ireland.
the doctors....the HSE...and the crass way we do things here.

i have good reason.
but maybe pasting up detail found in the local newspapers these words do sum it up and give me reason to be afraid:

In his letter to Mr Tony O’Brien on 8 July 2015, seen by MI, Mr Quinn referred to a series of letters he sent to the HSE National Director of Social Care Mr Pat Healy over the previous year about concerns relating to the quality and safety of residential services for people with a disability in facilities run by the Executive.

Mr Quinn also highlighted concerns regarding the timeliness and effective implementation of the HSE’s national safeguarding policy published in December 2014.

“Despite assurances identified by Pat Healy at that time, I fundamentally believe that the risks identified and the circumstances within which residential care for a significant number of adults and children with a disability remains significantly compromised,” wrote Mr Quinn.

He stated that HIQA had taken the unprecedented step of seeking emergency cancellation of Our Lady’s Service provided by St Patrick’s (Kilkenny) Ltd and also had to issue further notices of proposals to refuse or cancel the registration of a range of services.

Mr Quinn pointed out that while a number of these services exist on a campus or congregated setting and have significant challenges in respect of their physical premises, the main issues of concern relate to “regressive models of service provision, negative culture and failure to recognise and protect vulnerable service users”.

He also stated that the notices then recently sent out had the potential to affect 318 adults and children with disabilities.

Mr Quinn also wrote to Department of Health Secretary General Mr Jim Breslin on 10 July 2015 regarding HIQA’s growing concerns about the continued lack of assurance that the HSE, as both the provider and funder of services, could provide in respect of quality and safety issues with the disability sector.

There have been a number of high-profile controversies recently involving the treatment of patients in care homes, including Áras Attracta in Swinford, Co Mayo, and Ard Dara in Cork.

-----------------------------------------------

there is so much lying, deceit, abuse of power, injustice, inequality, lack of transparency, no wriggle room to find the justice you know you deserve.

all our services have been parred down out of existence, including the Human Rights commission, which seems to have found itself lost with lack of funding like everything, if you have a country in chaos, they say it gives rules the change to go mad, i mean 'psychopathic mad' in ruling.

if you get a person down far enough they wont wimper again.

well i will and intend to.

but it would be nice to think one day i will have my life back, this isnt living.

imagary are the order of the day i think,

first demo of my personal pain and grief.

then my gifts

then my wishes.

does that sound really good?

Addi lay in bed and just slept.  i could hardly move a muscle.  i had a bed companion at least! caption

it is.

after a very successful painting exhibition i seemed to have become very unwell, i had no temperature control and had long passed the menopause.  i was shattered all the time

its horrible to know you have been left in a small room with a dog alone.  told to keep taking the 'anti-depressants' but i knew i was very sick, i soon was to act.

here goes.

my pain was so bad....

i couldnt have done without my Ana

i didnt enjoy thinking much.  How can you go from a successful painter with studio to not being able to get out of bed?  and how can you be left?  well i am still thinking, the same thoughts

i was given a mobility scooter which revolutionised my life really, i was able to get out again.  but not after i had thought myself to walk because i had to do that too.  i had been to UK and found i had some problems with sjogrens, lupus and muscles and i was back.  here i am at the Hospice in the 'Rose Garden' on Respite, they give you lacatives here but no zip wires!

some brilliant health service OT persuaded me to move, but alas, she wasnt watching where the council put me...yep...i was shot at...and more...

I had to get away and i moved out of my county where i had lived all my life rarely leaving it.  but  now i was away from all i had known and met another brilliant health service OT who decided i had to give my mobility scooter back!
i kid you not!  so from Hospice Rose Gardens to Bang gone!

I hope Nijmegen experts alike will look at the shoes a person with considerable defects is supposed to wear, do you see holes in the soles, well yes they saw me through a snow filled winter and still - no shoes!  so we are now 2006-2015

 Yes i do consider i have gifts, so here i share....

my brushes snapped by twin when i was asleep

i was beginning to become quite accomplished at an art form i had not done since art college days, then whack i was 'outta it'

I received an Arts Council Award to do photography and i loved that too...rarely do much now as too busy trying to get healthcare.

'You understand, don't you?'
i called this image and entered it for an Irish Times Competition, i got runner up!  not bad!

you have to admit that they are worth photographing?

a really horrendous thing to see - my twin's dog coming up the garden with a knife!  i made a composite.  so i guess it sparked an image...with full meaning!
i do have wishes..a bucket list or wish list or aspirational thoughts.
to go home TO GO HOME AND TO GET THE HSE OUT OF MY HAIR.

KILLINEY BAY FROM THE GREEN LANE

LOOKING DOWN TOWARDS DUN LAOGHAIRE AND THE EAST COAST

THE GREEN LANE WITH MY ANA STANDING 'ARE YOU COMING?' SHE WONDERS

BULLOCK HARBOUR NOT CHANGED IN GENERATIONS, STILL SELLING CRABS FROM SMALL FISHERS

SANDYCOVE HARBOUR, VERY CLOSE TO WHERE ONE OF OUR FAMOUS WRITERS LIVED.

Never too late and never too sick, beats lying amongst the rose bushes in one respite centre to come here to this one in the UK
i want to do more of this ....and more...its called 'Living' which i think we should remind the HSE is the whole purpose of life really

YOU HAVE TO END WITH A SMILE - my great niece who is all grown up now well still teeny but not this teeny anymore!