Long listed for the Irish Blog Awards

The Stig for CF Ireland 2007 marathon blog has been long listed in the Best Sports and Recreation category at the 2008 Irish Blog Awards. Thanks to all of you for making this possible by supporting this blog over the past few months.

We face some stiff competition in this category and there'll be a further whittling down to a shortlist before the winners are announced on the 1st of March in the Alexander Hotel here in Dublin.

To find out more about the event check out the Irish Blog Awards site.

Greens call for CF action welcome but is it confidence inspiring?

I'm on the Green Party's mailing list and received an email earlier today with comments from Senator Deirdre De Burca calling for the Pollock reports recommendations to be treated with urgency.

In the release De Burca says "Ireland has the highest incidence of Cystic Fibrosis in Europe and yet reports show that Cystic Fibrosis care is consistently below standard. The Pollock report, commissioned and published by the Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland in 2005, compared existing hospital services to acceptable international standards. It found that current staffing was seriously inadequate and that in many locations, the physical facilities for patients with Cystic Fibrosis were well below accepted standards. The lack of segregation and isolation facilities for both outpatients and inpatients exposed sufferers to cross infection with virulent organisms such as MRSA and hepatitis C. This situation simply cannot continue."

She went on to say "The issues of secure funding, acceptable levels of specialist staffing and the provision of suitable segregation and isolation facilities must be top priority. I will be raising this issue as part of an Adjournment Debate early in this term of Seanad Éireann. I will be calling on the Minister for Health Mary Harney to commit to implementing the recommendations of the Pollock Report without delay."

This is all very noble but isn't the Senator's party in Government? Don't they have the power to give the Department of Health a kick up the behind and get things moving? The wording of the release reads awfully like something an opposition politician would say which isn't where the Greens need to be.

I don't doubt De Burca's sentiments for a moment and indeed heartily welcome her views but the time for talk from Government politicians on the matter is over. Attention Green Party, you guys won last May. Sure you're the smaller party but this is a buzz topic at the moment in health so rather than sound like a party on the outside looking in, do something about it.

The Greens have had to deal with more than their fair share of flak since entering office and I for one don't wish to add to it as I believe they have handled themselves well. Hopefully representatives like De Burca will be able to exert some influence from this position now and her call on the Minister will be listened to. For now we'll have to wait and see, in the meantime a lot of people are counting on this being more than just hot air.

The crux of the problem

Last night's Primetime had a special focus on the failure to install isolation units in Irish hospitals for Cystic Fibrosis patients. Patients in Northern Ireland have a life expectancy 10 years longer than those in the south and this programme explored the reasons why, which mostly are a result of failures in the health service.

The episode is available online here and I genuinely hope you all give it a look. If there's been an episode since by the time you get to look at it then check out the programme dated 15 January.

I'm not a terribly emotive guy but I was ready to punch the screen when the HSE rep kept dodging the issue of when they would actually get the isolation units built.

Farewell to the DoddPod

I know the last entry was supposed to be end of this year's campaign blog but the news overnight that Chris Dodd has pulled out of the race to win the Democratic nomination for US President merits a special exemption.

Last year I was writing an article on how US election candidates were using the internet to promote their campaigns when I was drawn to the Doddpod, a concept Dodd had where visitors to his site could recommend songs for him to listen to on his iPod when on the campaign trail.

While I honestly can't say I know much about the man's policies, it is no secret that the DoddPod was the direct inspiration for our efforts to get you guys to recommend songs for me to listen to on my iPod whilst I was doing the marathon. So in tribute to that I've posted the video for one of the songs that was recommended for the DoddPod above.