Month: July 2007

AN EAST Clare councillor has called on Clare’s newly elected pub- lic representatives to let Green En- vironment Minister, John Gormley know they will have no truck with an extension of Limerick’s bounda- ries into Clare.

OORT d er NE Oven (op e-biioe miele ie at arecent council meeting and in a press statement.

“Last year Minister Dick Roche gave the people of Clare a positive indication that he wouldn’t grant a

boundary extension into south east Clare. Whilst I remain confident that the new environment minister John Gormely TD will not grant an extension, it is nonetheless impor- tant that as an elected representa- tive of the area I continue to force- fully articulate the concerns of my constituents.”

Cllr Crowe said that should the minister be considering such a move, he should exercise differen- tiation.

“Whilst there is validity to the boundary opposition arguments put

forward by Limerick County Coun- cil I consider the Clare argument to hold far more substance,” he said.

While the consideration for Lim- erick authorities is largely one of rate payments, Cllr Crowe said, Clare’s concerns are about identity as well as money.

“A Limerick City boundary exten- sion into south east Clare will rob the people of south east Clare of a sense of identity,” he said

In addition, people who are sub- sumed into the new boundary would pay higher car and home insurance

and business people would pay higher rates, the councillor said.

‘At present arguments are abound- ing regarding Limerick’s city-status being in jeopardy. As an elected member of Clare County Council I] am well aware of the ‘bigger pic- ture’ of the mid-west regions:Lim- erick, Shannon and Ennis are pivot- al to the National Spatial Strategy,” he continued.

“I do however believe that the economic and social continuity of Limerick City does not hinge on a boundary extension.”

A NEW group is being formed to fight to retain a mammography service in Clare.

Following a meeting called by the Ennis General Hospital Development Committee, more than 20 people signed up to be part of a committee that will organise a campaign to have the county’s only mammography unit reopened.

The group will seek a new digital mammography unit at the Ennis hos- pital. It is proposed that the results can then be read from Limerick reduc- ing the travelling time for women and maintaining a vital health service in the

county. Chairperson of the Ennis Gen- eral Hospital Committee Peadar Mc- Namara said, “It has to be pointed out that the power rests with the two Fianna Fail deputies in Clare.

“This is an example of the whittling away of our health services.”

He said Limerick was over stretched at the moment and and stated con- cerned about the waiting time for Clare women.

“We had a service in Clare. We had a new room build for it and the day it was ready to open, the service was discon- tinued,’ he said.

The first mammography unit was opened in the 1980s following a fund- raising campaign by local women.

Mr Hession also said that the radiol- ogy staff in Limerick has agreed to take on extra work, when Clare wom- en are referred there from September ‘‘on the promise from the HSE that all this is going to get sorted out in terms of we get a proper breast centre”.

Mr Hession said that there would be no preferential treatment for women from Limerick and any woman pre- sented with a lump will be seen with- ht Wiere) ©

Meanwhile he is supporting Lim- erick as a centre of excellence. Mr Hession fears that there are a lot of misunderstandings about the service.

“Radiology is the diagnosis of breast cancer or the exclusion of breast can- cer after that our job is essentially done. The treatment is basically on- cology, surgery, radiotherapy,” he said.

He said that there are two differ- ent types of screening. The screen- ing breast service is the Breastcheck service, which has yet to be rolled out in the west offering mammograms to women in a certain age category.

“Tt is like going to the dentist with no symptoms,” said Mr Hession.

“What we are dealing with is sys- tematic breast disease. It is basically a woman either in between her invi- tations to Breastcheck or before she would even be asked, she developed symptoms be it pain or a lump or something like that. It is that group of patients that would be referred to the systematic breast service,’ he said.

Approximately 3,000 women a year go through the radiology department in Limerick, while 500 to 600 were receiving mammograms in Ennis every year.

Breastcheck will reduce both of

these numbers significantly accord- ing to Mr Hession.

“There is a significant waiting list for mammograms here as people are requesting screening mammograms, which GPs have a right to ask for. Un- fortunately we don’t have the slack in the system that we can facilitate them in the time scale they would want,’ he said.

‘“T am not speaking on behalf of the HSE, I am the person in charge of administration with the department of radiology and the advice we have been given is to make a systematic service work, a radiologist needs to be reading a thousand mammograms

a year. The technician doing them should be doing at least 20 a week.”

“The purpose of that is that these people get very experienced at what they are doing and very good at what they are doing. It also allows for the policing of results. So if a tumour is missed or it is a delayed diagnosis, it is all centralised and it is all open to analysis as to what happened and why did it happen. It 1s to put everything in one area, to pool the expertise, not just radiologists and breast surgeons. You are meant to have more than one surgeon as well, a pathologist, the doctor who looks at a specimen un- der a slide.

“The triple assessment clinic is Where a lot of women with lumps should go so they can be seen by a surgeon that day. That surgeon will refer them for imaging, which will be a mammogram or ultra sound, that depends on the woman. Cytolo- gist would be taken at that stage,” he said.

“The unit at Limerick 1s not a dig- ital system but the next system we hope to put in would be digital,” said Mr Hession.

“Technically it is very exact and it is policed and certainly no one is shy in breast screen washing laundry.”

“Unfortunately not all cancers are detectable. A mammography is not a clean bill of health,’ he said. “And they should not be taken as that. Cer- tainly if a woman has a mammogram and still feels a lump, and it is not rare, that still needs to be pursued. It does not mean it 1s missed, it just means it 1s invisible. Mammograms extenuates certain characteristics in a tumour but if that tumour does not have it or that lump does not have it, it is invisible.

“The real thrust of it is you are go- ing to a service that is designed by international best practice to deliver that service. It is not that we will have a little bit out in Nenagh and a little bit in Ennis. It 1s inconvenient, we were aware that it is less than conven- lent,’ he said.

THE roll out of the Breastcheck serv- ice to Clare is imminent, according to organisers, but a date has not yet leroy eM-DeneLOleNeTesrem

The national breast-screening pro- eramme has been available to wom- en in the east of the country for a number of years and plays a key role in early identification of cancer.

There are 30 new cases of breast cancer in Clare every year, and 13 deaths according to the most recent figures available for breast cancer

patients in Clare in 2002. Early de- tection is vital for the successful treatment of this cancer.

A spokesperson for the Breastcheck service would only confirm that the service would be available to women in Clare “later in the year” through a screening unit in Galway or mobile USD RSE

Initially the programme will sys- tematically screen women aged be- tween 50 and 65 years, eventually being expanded to women aged 70. Women will be screened on a two- year basis.

FORMER customers of Smart Tel- ecom in Clare, who are owed money by the telecommunications company, can expect to be reimbursed in the coming weeks.

Around 1,500 people nationwide are owed money almost nine months after they moved to other providers after Smart’s widely publicised row with Eircom late in 2006. There is no exact figure for the number of people owed money in Clare.

Last October,

Eircom ceased

providing whole-

sale services to

Smart Telecom

NACo MLS) DOLCE SC eLO!

that the company owed eircom sever- al million euro. Almost 45,000 cus- tomer voice lines were cut off leav- ing the majority of Smart customers unable to make outgoing calls except those to emergency numbers.

It was reported at the time that Smart owed Eircom €4m including arrears of €1.7m. Shortly afterwards, the then Communications Minister Noel Dempsey intervened, calling on Eircom to reconnect a full telephone service to Smart customers.

In a statement, the company said

that less than 1,500 customers are due refunds of up to €20 each. Re- payments have already commenced and are expected to be completed within the coming weeks. A small number of customers will receive monies over and above their entitle- ment where excess credits were at- tached to their bills last October.” Last month, Smart announced the appointment of Paul Talbot as its new Chief F*1- nancial Officer completing its new manage- ment team. The appointment of a CFO completes eComp an MU CCHRUDM DOTS of Smart ‘Tele- com which com- menced last au- tumn and which has seen numbers employed by the company reduced from 380 to 95. The company statement added, “Smart Telecom is now focused on data, broadband and Voice over In- ternet Protocol (VoIP) services to the Corporate, SME and Residential sec- tors. The company has indicated that it is part of a bidding consortium in a public tender to provide broadband services in areas that have been un- economic to date. If successful, this would see Smart roll out its services over an extended footprint”.

UP TO 190,000 bednights and 25,000 car rental days will be lost as a result of Open Skies and there will be 40,000 fewer US visitors to the Shannon region, a startling new industry report has predicted.

The report, featured on the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC) website, 1s based on flight figures and current information from tourism industry players, many of whom are moving their interests to Dublin Airport.

Based on recorded visitor behav- 1our, an increase in the number of

US visitors flying into Dublin won’t make up for the Shannon losses as Americans who fly in through Shan- non stay longer, spend more time outside Dublin and are more likely to hire a car to get around.

Shannon will see a reduction from 59 flights per week in each direction last winter to 34 for the coming win- ter – a 40 per cent decrease in maxi- mum available seat capacity.

‘The net impact of a possible shift of between 25 per cent and 30 per cent of US holiday traffic from Shannon to Dublin in the short term, without any appreciable increase in overall capacity on direct routes to Ireland

in 2008, could see an estimated net loss of between 150,000 and 190,000 bednights in the country, a reduction of up to 25,000 car rental days and at least 25,000 fewer Americans visit- ing in Cork/Kerry and up to 40,000 fewer Americans visiting the Shan- non region. The Galway west region could see at least a drop of 15,000 US holiday visitors’, the report states. The ITIC study predicts a “redistri- bution of mobile services – car rental fleets and coaches from Shannon to Dublin, with added congestion issues in Dublin together with higher oper- ating costs for most”

“These changes have potentially

very significant implications for the tourism industry, particularly busi- nesses based in the west’, it states.

ITIC is calling “as a matter of ur- gency” for the implementation of “a tourism and economic plan for the region, to include funds for the promotion of the west of Ireland in the US market so as to overcome the short-term impacts of open skies.”

It also argues that a special budget allocation to Tourism Ireland for each of three years (2008-2010) should be directed at heightening the motiva- tion to visit the western seaboard and to at least sustain the level of services to Shannon Airport.

THE HEALTH Service Executive is preparing to announce that accident and emergency departments at three hospitals in the mid west are to close and be replaced with “nurse lead mi- nor injuries units.”

According to sources, the depart- ments at Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s voluntary hospital in Limerick City will be named as the three casualties of the Teamwork report, a review of accident and emergency departments nationwide by the British-based con- sultants. The announcement is ex- pected in the next three weeks.

The news comes just two months

after a document leaked to the media revealed that accident and emergen- cy departments in the north east of the country are also set to close.

The Teamwork report will recom- mend that accident and emergency services at Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s be moved to the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick. The facilities will instead be replaced by “nurse lead minor injury units.” It is not clear, however, whether these new units will be open on a 24-hour basis.

Clare Fine Gael TD, Pat Breen, has called on the Government “to shred this report, live up to their election commitments or lives will be lost.”

Deputy Breen said, “If these reports are true, then Ennis hospital will ef- fectively become a 12-hour nurse-led injury clinic. Whilst acknowledging the outstanding role that nurses play in the hospital and the care and atten- tion given by them to their patients, the failure to provide 24-hour con- sultant-led accident and emergency will mean that lives will be lost”.

“Of course, it 1s no coincidence that the Dail is in recess when this report is set to be published.”

Meanwhile, the PRO of the Ennis General Hospital Development Com- mittee Councillor Brian Meaney said, “They are suggesting putting in an injuries unit and they should do

but it should operate in tandem with the existing 24 hour accident and emergency department which is al- ready stretched…

“We will fight this and if means marching on the Dail we will but we also have a number of imaginative civil disobedience protests we could mount,’ Mr Meaney said.

“If they think the HSE can intro- duce this policy unilaterally, without consulting politicians, like they did with the mammography unit in En- nis earlier this month, they will have to deal with a different reality in due course,” the councillor added.

A comment was still awaited from the HSE last night.

THE patient at the centre of an in- vestigation into treatment at an Ennis nursing home was “not dehydrated or in a medication induced coma as al- leged” according to the HSE.

In answers to a series of questions dating back to late November regard- ing the treatment of the late Gerard Finn at Cappahard Lodge Nursing Home, the HSE said a complaint that the Kilrush man was returned to En- nis General Hospital with bruising and dehydration in July 2006, was investigated by two senior nurses.

While denying the patient was dehydrated, the HSE said that two bruises “described as a pinch mark or a finger prick”’ were found.

Mr Finn had also been admitted to the county hospital in March of that year, where he was diagnosed with a respiratory tract infection in the presence of advanced dementia.

Allegations of bruising to the arms and head were also made at the wneales

“No evidence of any maltreatment was found by the GP or the consult- ant at Ennis General Hospital. The patient had suffered two falls in the week preceding admission and was x-rayed. It was concluded that the cause of the falls was advanced de- mentia with recurring TIAs (tran- sient ischemic attacks),” said HSE.

It also said that Mr Finn was not medically fit to leave Cappahard Lodge, Ennis, when his daugh- ter wished to remove him from the home.

According to the HSE he was taken to visit his daughter’s home when he was fit to do so but his daughter was not allowed to take him from the home on Father’s Day 2006 as he was not medically well enough.

The HSE confirmed that it used re- straints on the 69-year-old Kilrush man “on a needs basis with a seat belt

in an appropriate chair for short peri- ods for health and safety reasons.”

It also stated that the restraints policy at Cappahard Lodge was “evi- dence based best practice in accord- ance with national norms.”

The HSE ordered an external in- dependent review last May into the treatment of Mr Finn at the home fol- lowing concerns raised by a number of parties including staff.

A separate Garda investigation 1s also under way following complaints made by some family members of the Kilrush man.

Mr Finn was admitted to the home in December 2005 with Alzheimer’s and angina. During an “extended period of time” some of his family members made a number of com- plaints to the HSE regarding his care at Cappahard Lodge.

The complaints were investigated by the Clinical Director and Direc- tor of Nursing, Clare Mental Health Services. The “screening process” found that no abusive actions had taken place and that “nursing and medical care provided for Mr Finn was appropriate’.

The HSE said that as a result no further investigation was warranted.

Following the Trust in Care investi- gation the HSE continued to receive complaints from some family mem- bers. The external review was then commissioned, prior to Mr Finn’s death at the home in June.

‘The HSE is confident that all pa- tients in Cappahard are well and pro- fessionally catered for,’ a HSE state- ment said.

Mr Finn’s widow Ann said repeat- edly she had no issue with her late husband’s treatment at the Ennis home and was full of praise for its staff. Last night the HSE confirmed that the terms of reference for the independent review were being final- ised and the review was expected to begin shortly.

A KILRUSH Town Councillor has called for an extension to the town boundary and an investigation in to the possibility of increasing the local authorities power.

Cllr Tom Prenderville (FF), be- lieves now is the time to prepare a preliminary report on “the feasibility of seeking ministerial approval for an extension to the town boundary.”

‘From a social and economic view point the town is extending to the west, south and east,” he said.

“There is a lot of building going on. There are new estates being built on the periphery of the town that will need services. It would make more

sense for those people to be looked after by the town council.”

He pointed also to the further de- velopment at the edge of the town such as Tesco.

“And there are going to be more there in the next five to ten years.”

He said that now was the time as work begins on the new Kilrush Town Plan, to look to the future and look at the costs of such an extension of the boundary and local powers.

Cllr Prenderville said that within the next 20 years he could hope to see the town council become a dis- trict council.

“Ennis, Shannon ad Kilrush need to be able to expand and a good discus- sion document is needed,” he added.

FOUR Ennis men accused of violent disorder on the night of an ear-biting incident, have been found not guilty, on direction of the judge.

William Fox (24), Hermitage; Clinton Keane (24), Castlewood Park; Michael McCarthy (25), Wa- tery Road and Scott Hennessy (19), Waterpark Court, had all pleaded not guilty to the charge, at Market Square, Ennis, on March 18, 2005.

Counsel for the State, Stephen

Coughlan said it would be alleged that Mr Browne and Keane began to fight, at around 12.45 am. He said Keane was assisted by Mr McCarthy, Mr Hennessy and Mr Fox.

“During the course of that incident Mr Browne remembers his ear be- ing chewed. When the incident had finished, William Fox followed him around and said, ‘I’m sorry’ and handed him his ear. His ear had been severed,” said Mr Coughlan.

He told the jury that violent disor- der amounted to three or more peo-

ple using unlawful violence simulta- neously.

Simon Flanagan, who had been so- cialising with Mr Browne that night, recalled a “melee breaking out,” where “an awful lot” of people were present.

“Gary got a good hiding, like a football on the street. | made an at- tempt to go over, but I was pushed back out of the way, by William Fox,” he said.

“Gary was in an awtul state. He took a savage beating. It was as it

sounds. It was disgusting. He was hammered,” he said.

Keane’s_ barrister Mark Nicho- las, in his cross-examination of Mr Browne, said, “You did meet him in Sullie’s pub. You pushed him first and he pushed you back and ye were put out.” Mr Browne said, “That was the end of it.”

Mr Nicholas added, “You wanted to have a go at Clinton Keane after that.”” Mr Browne said he would have no problem having a “one-on-one” welsemebneee

Mr Browne said he was “absolutely drunk off my head” on the night, “but they had no right to do what they did to me.”

Barrister Lorcan Connolly, who represented Mr McCarthy, said Mr Browne’s recollection of the night was “bad, because of the amount of drink” he had consumed. Mr Browne disputed this.

After a legal submission in the ab- sence of the jury, Judge Sean O Don- nabhain recalled the jury and direct- ed them to find all four not guilty.