Man Friday - TV Legend!
Friday, 9 November 2007
Our Man Friday has been entertaining us for years, and its fair enough to say, he's a TV Legend!
Our Man Friday today is Derek Davis. Derek has been a personality on radio and television in Ireland for over 35 years!! He is here today with his new book 'And That Was Derek Davis'!
About Derek Davis
Derek Davis joined RTÉ as a freelance journalist in 1973 and was staffed as a senior reporter in 1974. He won two prestigious Jacobs' awards as a newscaster and programme presenter.
No one has presented the variety of programmes he has - from hard-nosed news and current affairs to light entertainment. His own passions for fishing, boating, fine food and wine are well known, and he has made scores of programmes on these themes for RTÉ and the BBC.
And That Was ... Derek Davis
by Derek Davis
Household name Derek Davis presents here a collection of his popular RTÉ radio broadcasts.
Never complacent and always questioning, they describe a changing society and its changing concerns: the treatment of the elderly, the shirking of duties and opportunities by those in public office at home and abroad, the tribulations of the Irish motorist and the troubles - both north and south of the border.
Derek speaks about topics he knows well and feels strongly about. His passion and joie de vivre, as well as his distinctive voice and turn of phrase, are all retained from the original transcripts.
Perfect for those who've listened to and enjoyed the radio columns, and also those who haven't had the opportunity.
'In denial'
Broadcast 12 March 2006
If you are an accident and emergency consultant who hasn't yet been interviewed on radio or television, don't worry: it seems that the story will run and run. Your turn will come. Keep the make-up kit handy; there is a camera crew coming your way soon! I don't know how Mary Harney or Brendan Drumm can be expected to sort out the advice, but at least there is no shortage of it. Oh yes - and here is some more.
Any good therapist will tell you that before you can be treated for a problem, you have to accept that you have a problem. You're not just a social drinker, you're an alcoholic. You're not just someone who dabbles in recreational drugs, you're an addict. So whenever a politician tells me, 'There is no crisis in the health service', I get quite depressed. Does that mean that the whole government is in denial, and, if so, how can the problem be treated? What comforts me is that the denial is a public, political denial and even the most detached citizen knows there is a crisis.
Politicians are not detached. They survive by keeping their fingers
on their constituents' pulses. They know from the last batch of elections that health was the hottest item, and the Government got beaten up. In about a year, there will be a general election, just twelve months. Surely it's impossible to sort it all out in a year? Could there be substantial progress? A large number of step-down beds has been made available, but hospitals are still having to defer elective surgery because acute patients have to be treated first. Most agree that we need more beds, and with more beds comes the need for more personnel to tend to those beds; but additional beds won't be enough to relieve the chaos of A&E.
Part of the problem seems to be that in many hospitals, technicians work office hours. Expensive equipment, even X-ray, lies unused during the busiest times. That's not in every hospital, but it is in some. I recall waiting during an afternoon with a son who had broken a foot while the radiographer on duty was summoned by taxi to deal with the accumulated backlog. In short, it seemed good enough for the hospital that someone 'on duty' could stay at home until called on. Remember the name of that department, by the way: 'Accident and Emergency'.
Over the years, I have been fortunate in our choice of family doctor. I remember one night my mother was babysitting my then-three-year-old son. We came home to find the child struggling for breath and my mother trying to dial an ambulance. I called my doctor at 1 o'clock in the morning, and fifteen or twenty minutes later he was in the house holding the child over steaming pots of water. My son's breathing eased; possibly his life or his intellect were saved. Hilary was a great doctor, alas long dead, and with him any notion of calling a GP in an emergency.
We are all conditioned to head for A&E, but a HSE report showed that up to 50 per cent of those presenting at A&E had not been to their GP first, and a third of all of those turning up to A&E units could be treated by a properly equipped GP. Think about that. If, say, 300 people turned up at an A&E unit, 100 could have been treated elsewhere.
So why not? Opening hours are one reason; even large practices don't seem to offer twenty-four-hour cover, though proper shift arrangements could give both doctor and patient advantages.
There is no mandatory equipment level for a GP: hence, some practices are superbly geared up to conduct tests, do minor surgery and even offer a range of specialities; others have equipment levels that have changed little since the 1950s.
A few weeks ago, I was at the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) Annual Conference where there were two interesting examples of denial: one from a junior minister, who, to the great amusement of many, announced that there was no crisis, and the other from the GPs, who insisted that they offered the optimum level of service. That's when up to 50 per cent of those taken ill headed for A&E and avoided them. And remember: a third of all A&E patients could be treated by those GPs. It was clear that some big practices in Cork were doing well with GP cover till 7pm and co-op cover after that, but nationwide, the GP service is uneven and placing an unfair burden on A&E.
Money plays a part. Why pay a GP to refer you to an A&E when you can cut out the middle man and go directly to hospital - pay only once. It might be worth considering deducting the GP fee, if paid, from the A&E charge, if levied, and allowing a practice to advertise its range of services and level of cover. Shock, horror!
Actually stick a notice in the local paper and give GPs offering a good level of service equipment grants. Make it legal for GPs to have their own X-ray equipment - if the dentists can, why not the GPs? Take the handcuffs off the doctors and help them take one-third of patients out of the A&E units, and if they make more money by providing a better service, they will deserve it.
Oh, by the way, at that IMO conference, I heard the very persuasive Professor John Higgins, from Cork University Hospital, make the case for doctors to manage A&E and other services. Well, Prime Time pointed out that the most efficient of A&E units in the State is probably in Kilkenny, and it's run by a doctor. Not a computer expert or an accountant or a personnel officer: a doctor. Now there's a thing!