Category Archives: Medical Jobs

Poor job – Poor health

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Fed up with your job?

Fed up with your job?

Being in a badly paid job with little or no support can be as bad for your mental health as having no job at all, the results of a new study indicate. (IrishHealth.com)

According to Australian researchers, because being in work is associated with better mental health than unemployment, government policies have tended to focus on the risks posed by joblessness, without necessarily considering the impact the quality of a job may have.

 

They collected data on over 7,000 people of working age. The participants’ mental health was assessed and they were asked about their employment status.

For those who worked, the ‘psychosocial’ quality of their job was graded according to measures related to demands and complexity, level of control and perceived job security. Respondents were also asked if they felt they received fair pay for the work they did.

Not unexpectedly, the study found that those who were unemployed had poorer mental health overall compared to those in work.

However, after taking account of a range of factors with the potential to influence the results, such as educational attainment and marital status, the mental health of those who were jobless was comparable to, or often better than, that of people who worked, but were in poor quality jobs.

Those in the poorest quality jobs experienced the sharpest decline in mental health over time. Furthermore, there was a direct link between the number of unfavourable working conditions experienced and mental health, with each additional adverse condition lowering the mental health score.

The researchers from the Australian National University noted that there is some evidence to show that employment is associated with better physical and mental health and the mental health of those out of work tends to improve when they find a job.

However, in this study, they found that the health benefits of finding a job after a period of unemployment depended on the quality of the post. In other words, job quality predicted mental health.

Getting a high quality job after being unemployed improved mental health by an average of three points, but getting a poor quality job was more detrimental to mental health than remaining unemployed, resulting in a loss of 5.6 points.

The researchers pointed out that paid work confers several benefits, including a defined social role and purpose, friendships and structured time. But jobs which afford little control, are very demanding, or provide little support and reward, are not good for mental health, they insisted.

“Work first policies are based on the notion that any job is better than none as work promotes economic as well as personal wellbeing. Psychosocial job quality is a pivotal factor that needs to be considered in the design and delivery of employment and welfare policy,” the team concluded.

Details of these findings are published in the journal, Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Welcome to our new Health Minister – Dr James Reilly

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Dr James Reilly

Dr James Reilly

As was widely expected, Fine Gael’s Dr James Reilly has been appointed Minister for Health in the new coalition Government (Irishhealth.com)

Dr Reilly was first elected to the Dail in 2007 and was appointed Fine Gael health spokesman shortly afterwards. He was appointed the party’s Deputy Leader last July.

He faces a challenging task in pushing through the major health reforms promised by the new Government, most importantly the introduction of a new universal health insurance (UHI) system which aims to end  two-tier care and give everyone equal access to GP and hospital treatment based solely on medical need.

The Government has promised free GP care will be introduced within its five-year term of office, following which the UHI system will come in, allowing for universal hospital care.

Dr Reilly also faces the more immediate task of dealing with waiting lists, bed capacity and emergency department overcrowding. The new Government has promised to set up a special delivery unit aimed at eliminating long patient waiting times.

The new Minister comes from a medical family going back three generations. His father, Dr Noel Reilly, was Secretary General of the Irish Medical Association. There are seven doctors in his family.

A GP in north Dublin for many years and a fourth generation native of Lusk, James Reilly is married with five children.

Prior to entering national politics, he had a major involvement in medical politics, having served as President of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) and Chairman of the IMO’s GP Committee.

He led the IMO negotiating team which negotiated a lucrative deal for GPs following the extension of the medical card scheme to all over 70s regardless of income in 2001.

Dr Reilly has, however said that the will not shirk from taking on vested interests in implementing reforms. He has already promised to negotiate new contracts for GPs and consultants and cut their earnings.

Fine Gael to end Hospital Consultant massive earnings

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Fine Gael Health SpokespersonAccording to the irishhealth.com, Fine Gael’s health spokesperson Dr James Reilly has warned that massive earnings by some hospital consultants would end under the party’s universal health insurance (UHI) plan.

Under both Fine Gael and Labour’s health service plans, everyone in the population would be insured for the same level of health cover and there would be equal access to care in both private and public hospitals for everyone based on medical need alone, with free GP care also being provided for the entire population.

Labour has proposed that €75 million be clawed back from consultant salaries to help pay for free GP care, while Sinn Fein has said consultants’ public salaries should be reduced from the current €180,000 plus to €150,000.

Dr Reilly told a health policy conference in Dublin that the days of consultants taking a large State salary and an even larger private practice payout on top of that, would come to an end under Fine Gael.

“People who are earning €180,000 to €200,000, who have studied for six years to get a good Leaving Cert and then go to medical college for six years, and then train for a further 10 years – I think most people acknowledge that people who have done that have developed an expertise and are entitled to a good income. And I believe €180,000 is a bloody good income.”

“I am saying very clearly that the days of people who think they can take €180,000 out of the State and another €300,000 from the VHI will be over under Fine Gael, because it’s just not sustainable. It may upset some people, but this is a society we live in and no-one can set themselves above the rest of society. We are all taking pain and we will all share in the gain at the other end, and that is the Fine Gael position.”

The conference, attended by representatives of the main political parties, was organised by the Irish Dental Association, Irish Medical Organisation and Irish Pharmacy Union.

Dr Reilly said there was sufficient money being spent on health even with the cutbacks to give us an excellent service. “We just have not been spending the money in the right way.”

He said under the Fine Gael insurance plan healthcare would be run by private operators and there may be some not for profit global insurance operators who might enter the market as well under UHI.

“With the entire community insured we will be doubling the size of the market and that will attract more competition and I believe help control costs.”

Labour’s health spokesperson Jan O’Sullivan told the meeting that we have to reform the health service in order to get better value for money. She said Labour would introduce free GP care at the point of delivery within four years.

She said under Labour’s universal insurance scheme cover would be provided by private health insurers as well as a public health insurer. A public health insurer body would be set up but people would be allowed to keep their private insurance as well.

Both Fine Gael and Labour plan to reinstate the dental scheme for medical card patients, the meeting was told. However, Fine Gael said the funds were not there at the moment to reinstate dental care subsidies for those who pay PRSI, while Labour said it would review the matter.

Fianna Fail health spokesman Barry Andrews said he would challenge Fine Gael to outline what the true cost of universal health insurance would be. He said a couple in the Netherlands in a similar scheme had to pay €5,000 per annum for health cover.

He said he doubted whether the two-tier system would end under UHI , as people would still be able to purchase additional benefits other than those provided under the State-controlled insurance scheme.

Ruadhan MacAodhain of Sinn Fein told the meeting that his party opposed UHI as they saw it as a direct privatisation of the HSE, and the party would limit consultant salaries to €150,000 a year.

Late nights are a ticking time bomb for Health

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Late nights bad for our healthAccording to Irishhealth.com,  people who are often deprived of sleep or have disrupted sleep patterns may be at an increased risk of suffering serious health problems, including heart attacks and stroke, new evidence suggests.

Today’s economy has significant stress, loss of jobs, financial difficulty and this will have an effect on our sleep.

In a new job or in current times, people want to prove themselves and this can lead to working long hours.

Stress and worry for our job searchers can also reduce sleep drastically and leave our job seekers feeling exhausted which can be reflected at interview.

UK researchers looked at studies involving 470,000 people in eight countries, including the UK, Sweden and the US. They found that poor sleep can have serious, long-term health implications.

“If you sleep less than six hours per night and have disturbed sleep, you stand a 48% greater chance of developing or dying from heart disease and a 15% greater chance of developing or dying of a stroke,” explained lead researcher, Prof Francesco Cappuccio, of the University of Warwick.

He said that the current trend for late nights and early mornings ‘is actually a ticking time bomb for our health’ and advised people to ‘act now to reduce the risk of developing these life-threatening conditions’.

“There is an expectation in today’s society to fit more into our lives. The whole work/life balance struggle is causing too many of us to trade in precious sleeping time to ensure we complete all the jobs we believe are expected of us.

“But in doing so, we are significantly increasing the risk of suffering a stroke or developing cardiovascular disease resulting in, for example, heart attacks.”

The study pointed out that chronic short sleep produces hormones and chemicals in the body, which increase the risk of developing heart disease and strokes, as well as other conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes.

However, Prof Cappuccio did warn of the implications of going too far the other way, as sleeping overly long – more than nine hours at a stretch – may also be an indicator of illness, including cardiovascular disease.

“By ensuring you have about seven hours sleep a night, you are protecting your future health and reducing the risk of developing chronic illnesses. The link is clear from our research – get the sleep you need to stay healthy and live longer,” he said.

Details of these findings are published in the European Heart Journal

Our Student Nurses – easy targets for the Government?

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Student Nurses to strike

Student Nurses to strike

Student nurses are threatening to take industrial action in protest at Government moves to cut their pay.

The student nurses’ pay is to be cut and eventually phased out. Students currently get 80% of the minimum rate staff nurse salary during a nine-month placement in hospitals.

Under the pay cut plan, student nurses would see their pay fall cumulatively by 65% up to 2014 and be paid no salary at all from 2015, according to their union, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO)

The INMO said 6,000 student midwives and nurses in training will hold a lunchtime protest in 13 hospitals across the country on February 9.

This will be followed by a march and rally in Dublin on February 16.

The five main political parties are to be lobbied for their views on the planned student pay cuts. Nursing students are also to be balloted on industrial action up to and including strike action.

The INMO said it viewed the pay cut plan as an imposition of ‘slave labour.’

It’s goodbye to our Health Minister

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Mary Harney out

Mary Harney out

According to IrishHealth.com, Mary Harney has brought to an end nearly six-and-a half-years as Health Minister with the announcement of her resignation from the Cabinet.

She offered her resignation to the Taoiseach, which has been accepted, and has announced she will not be standing in the forthcoming general election. It had been speculated for some time that she would not run in the election.

Ms Harney said she offered her resignation to Brian Cowen last week but was told to hold off on making the announcement.

Mary Harney was appointed Health Minister in September 2004. She was previously Minister for Enterprise Trade and Employment.

A former Tanaiste, Mary Harney has witnessed the demise of the party she helped found – The Progressive Democrats- while serving as Health Minister.

She is the second longest holder of the health portfolio in the history of the State, but her critics will say that after more than six years, she should have achieved more.

While she has had some limited successes as Minister – the Fair Deal nursing home funding scheme; providing for better regulation of doctors and other health professionals; reducing drug costs to some extent and bringing in doctor visit medical cards, on the big healthcare issues she has essentially failed to deliver.

Early on in her ministry she promised to resolve the ongoing A&E crisis. Years later, emergency department trolley numbers have reached record levels and the Minister continued to offer little in the way of concrete solutions to the ongoing hospital capacity crisis.

The Minister told the Dail last week: “we must become less focused on beds and more focused on activity.”

Despite her exhortation, the rest of the country was extremely focused on beds, and the lack of them. Patients were becoming less focused on beds as more and more of them got used to waiting on trolleys.

As Minister, Mary Harney presided over considerable bed reductions, which took place long before an alternative system aimed at reducing reliance on hospital beds was put in place.

Mary Harney’s plan to increase capacity in the system by decanting private beds from public hospitals into co-located private units failed. Nearly six years after she announced co-location as a quick solution to hospital capacity problems, not one co-located hospital or bed has opened.

The cancer services reorganisation is regarded as a success on Ms Harney’s watch, but much of this success was down to Prof Tom Keane. In any case, the report proposing cancer service reorganisation had lain on a shelf for years and was only activated after a number of breast cancer misdiagnosis scandals emerged during the Harney era.

Other more negative aspects of Ms Harney’s Ministry that will be rembered include:

* Failure to reform the HSE, a structure she effectively inherited from her predecessor, Micheal Martin, but whose establishment was very much in line with her reform-minded PD policy.

* Early in her ministry, the fall-out from the scandal over illegal overcharging by health authorities of public nursing home patients for many years.

* The attempt to take medical cards off thousands of over 70s.

*Frequent expressions of regret over the latest hospital care or misdiagnosis scandal and claims that hospital safety would improve despite her efforts , Mary Harney failed to convince the public that she was making healthcare provision safer.

* ‘Taxing the poor’, by introducing prescription charges. Ireland must be one of the few developed countries where those on the very lowest incomes are charged for treatment,albeit at a low rate.

* Her recent clash with Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly, with the Minister insisting that the State was not legally obliged to provide public long-stay care for the elderly.

*Her failure to effectively tackle waiting list numbers, despite the NTPF, and in particular waiting times for outpatient appointments.

*Controversy over her expenditure on business trips abroad as Health Minsiter and in her previous ministry, not to mention her lengthy stay in New Zealand as the Tallaght x-ray crisis unfolded.

So is it goodbye and good riddance or just farewell?

The history of the Vibrator – A Medical Device?

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The Vibrator - a Medical Device?

The Vibrator - a Medical Device?

The history of the Vibrator is indeed a very old and interesting one!

There is a section in the London Science Museum especially dedicated which shows over 40 types of vibrators from the late 1800′s to the early 1900′s!

The Vibrator has also recently been brought to stage Productions of – ‘In the next room’ by Darah Ruhl on Broadway and ‘Hysteria’ – a film based on the story of Dr Joseph Mortimer Granville who was said to have invented the first electro mechanical vibrator in 1880

Vibrators were used in these earlier times for treatment of female hysteria – although, nowadays – it tends to be the cause of it!

Symptoms of Female Hysteria at that time were anxiety, insomnia, irritability and fluid retention and were thought at that time to be caused by a ‘wayward womb’ – a pelvic massage was often the prescription of choice performed by the Midwife.

In the late 1800′s, this treatment was then taken to the next level and mechanical vibrators were initially invented as medical devices to be used by Doctors to rid these female patients of their ‘neurosis’

According to Vanessa Thorpe, writing in the Observer, vibrators were available before the iron or vacuum cleaner!

‘Good Housekeeping’ in 1909 was enlightened enough to run a feature discussing the pros and cons of various types of home vibrators.

One of the manufacturers in this time even produced a home motor to which a vibrator could be attached!This model was a multi tasking appliance, for when not being used to power the vibrator, it could be used to run a sewing machine or drive a churn!

I wonder what our hysterical female audience think of this – dare to comment?!!!!………….

Assertive Job Seekers get pay off!

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Be assertive in your job applications

Be assertive in your job applications

For any job seekers out there, we have some recent evidence of persistence paying off!

Assertive job seekers are getting their pay off.

Job seekers are a vulnerable group as it is a worrying time for anyone, either you have recently lost a job or are not happy in your current job.

In today’s ‘Redundancy’ market, you are less likely to be choosy or assertive.

Do not drop your standards or self worth -

If you feel you match the criteria for a job and have all the Employer is looking for – stand your ground.

Twice this week we have seen evidence of amounts of job applications reflecting the lack of care and attention to individual CV’s or applications.

We had 2 rejections on behalf of our Candidates from Employers who did not think the Candidate – job seeker matched their criteria

When pushed and all relevant experience highlighted, both Employers reversed their decisions and agreed to invite the Candidate for interview.

One was offered the job today!

In this market, where numbers of applications are increasing and pressure is on Employers and Recruiters alike to get through the sheer volume of applications, mistakes can happen and people can be ‘missed out’

Do not always take rejection lightly – if you believe you have read and meet the job essential criteria – question why your CV has been rejected - you may be lucky and  get a second glance.

Persistence pays off – if you believe you are the right Candidate – you have every right to question why you have not progressed to interview stage.

In today’s market – with increased pressure, imminent budget and Redundancies  – there is no excuse for a drop in standards and carelessness due to high volume of job applications.

Be sure to stand your ground and at the very least find out why your application has not been successful – those who accept it with no question will not find out why or get a possible second glance – what have you got to lose?