IN SIDE
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Serving Cork for 120 years
Edition No: 36422
GAA caving in to Inter-County culture
I became an undertaker to combat recession
JOHN ARNOLD: PAGE 21
TRADING STORIES: PAGE 15
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Fix our health service UCC president Dr Michael Murphy has called for major changes in the Irish health system in an effort to retain graduates.
Oisin Kenny with a letter written by his late mother Joanne. Picture: David Keane
Teenager shares mum’s final words AN inspirational Cork teenager, who received his mother’s suicide note 15 years after her death, is sharing her final written words in an effort to get more people talking about mental health, writes Kelly O’Brien. Oisín Kenny recently received a letter which his mother wrote to him just before she passed away. It was given to him in the run-up to his 18th birthday. “It was really emotional and it was really hard to read,” admitted Oisín. ■ See Page 5.
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Speaking to the Evening Echo, Dr Murphy, a former Head of UCC’s College of Medicine and a former board member of the HSE, argued for improved training and incentives to ensure better leadership in the health service and he called for international peer review across the wider public service. “It’s a sad situation,” he said. “I think that universities over the decades have graduated very highquality frontline staf f for the health service here and the fact that so many go overseas to make their careers is a serious criticism of the manner in which we operate our health service.” He suggested that peer review, similar to that which is implemented in the third-level sector, would be one way to address problems. “In Irish universities, every school, every department, every research centre has to undergo review and judgements by international, high-quality peers who challenge what you do, challenge how you think, challenge your plans, challeng e you to have plans,” added Dr Murphy. “I believe that approach should be adopted across the entire public
UCC President Dr Murphy calls for HSE changes
At a civic reception at City Hall, honouring Dr. Michael Murphy, President of UCC, to mark the completion of his 10-year term as president, were Lord Mayor Councillor Des Cahill, who made a presentation to Dr. Murphy, in the presence of Dr Murphy’s wife Sioban, their daughter Elizabeth and son Michael, and Ann Doherty, chief executive, Cork City Council, (left). Picture: Denis Minihane ■ Audrey Ellard Walsh service and particularly in the health service and that would contribute to addressing the difficulties. The HSE was a great idea to unify what was an excessively fragmented system with unacceptable differences in patient out-
comes in different parts of the country,” he said. “It has helped identify these realities but at the same time I think it has gone too far in the direction of centralised decision making and not enough delegation, though delegation requires sufficient competence at
all levels in the system. “While we have excellent frontline staff we have never created the developmental programme for leadership within the health service that parallels the career development programmes that we have for the professions.” ■ Continued on Page 2.