Five Years Without Bread?

cavan | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis Wednesday September 10, 2003 10:12 by Sean Crudden - impero sean.crudden at iol dot ie Jenkinstown, Dundalk 042 93 71310

Surgeons Suspended in Cavan General.

Two surgeons have been placed on suspension without pay. What are the issues involved?

Going by the Sunday Tribune (24 August 2003) the NEHB have decided to take the "nuclear" option and place two surgeons at Cavan General Hospital on suspension without pay. The process thus set in train will - from my experience - take a minimum of five years from first to last until these individuals can possibly resume the practice of their profession. Meanwhile their highly honed and polished surgical skills (which are apparently not in question) will fust (to use a Shakespearean term) in disuse.

Five years is a long time without bread - and there may be young families of these men to consider, too. It seems to me that the action of the NEHB in the matter is not only disproportionate but downright capricious and cruel. Surely it is a matter of day-to-day administration to unravel the tangles of small interpersonal disputes (and that is all that seems to be at issue here) in order to smooth and iron out human relations which are as likely to be fraught in a hospital as they are in a school or factory or hotel or a newspaper office.

It reminds me of what often used to happen in the old days in school. The weak teacher having lost control of his class pulls out the strap to pulverise his charges into silence and "discipline."

From another point of view, perhaps, if more argument and discussion and debate had been tolerated in Our Lady of Lourdes hospital it would not have turned out to be the cesspit of medical scandal it now appears to have been.


In conclusion let me assure you that I have no political or family connection with either of the two men involved nor have I consulted either of them before committing pen to paper on their case.

My only connection with them is that I am a member of the same human race as they are and I hope that some means can be found before it is too late to temper the macho act of the NEHB in this instance.


We were all poignantly reminded recently, during the early stages of The Hutton Enquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, that the employer has a duty of care to her employee.