IRELAND
Evening Echo
Fr Liam Kelleher
WHO can protect our Christian ethos?
I write this at the end of April, exactly a year to the day since my brother, Denis, passed to his eternal reward at St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin.
I had visited him there on a number of occasions for the previous six weeks.
In the light of the controversy surrounding the hospital on the recent announcement that it would be the site of the new National Maternity Hospital, I would like to make a few observations.
First of all, regarding my visits to the hospital a year ago, I must say I was not impressed by it, and my sister, who is a nurse, was of the same opinion.
On one occasion during my visit, my brother’s wife, a member of the medical profession herself, picked up his chart to have a look at it and received what I consider was an unwarranted tirade of abuse by a member of the staff.
To her credit, she stood her ground and demanded that she had a right to know what was going on, simply saying “he is my husband”.
My sister, Maureen, who succumbed to the dreaded disease of cancer 12 years ago, was a member of the order of the Daughters of Charity and a member of the National nursing board. She did her general nursing there before going on to do a tutor’s degree in Scotland and becoming head tutor at Our Lady’s Hospital in Crumlin.
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