I welcome this opportunity to add my voice to all the noise about the NHS. Due to circumstances involving an unwelcome cat, steep, stone back steps and speed, Gus tripped and has ruptured his R/Achilles tendon. We now have insight into MRI ‘minor’ injuries treatment and care. Triaged by Health Care assistant within 10 minutes of arrival at 6.00pm, a large screen announced that the wait would be 2.5hrs – we were seen in 1.5hrs by a Nurse Practitioner. Top marks for quality and diagnosis, referred to Orthopaedic Registrar, sent for X-ray, no wait. seen in 1hr by Ortho. Reg, Bar coded by student nurse. Admitted to Assessment Ward, on trolley till 11.00 then transferred to bed. 8.30am seen by Ortho Consultant (Sir Lancelot Spratt clone) for 120 seconds. Informed what the treatment would be. Taken to # clinic, PoP plaster cast applied by technicians (sterile dressing for small graze had to be negotiated). Back to Ward seen by OT, Physio + taken for crutch training with 2 Physios. Long 5 hour wait for Senior Dr to sign discharge letter. Home just before 6.00pm
Very slick, everything bar-coded! Wheelchairs available in car park like supermarket trolleys with £1 slots. All clinical care now being done by lower grade staff. Ward run by Staff Nurse, nursing by Healthcare staff. It’s definitely ‘conveyor belt’ technology but Gus is satisfied with the medical/surgical care so far. His only real complaint, the wait to be discharged.
Before all that we had a lovely week in Ireland. We went to attend a ‘Gathering’ in Slane, a village near the East coast of Southern Ireland, where I grew up. The occasion was a Mill Reunion, my father having been the Mill manager during it’s cotton heyday in the 1950s & 60s. The Mill House (well the 1st floor) was our home. Note the ruin of a Franciscan Friary on the Hilltop in the poster. It was a marvellous occasion with approx 1000 people attending. I had to make a speech as they unveiled to memorial plaque to my father and the local Councillor presented me with a gift from the Committee!
The rest of the week was spent exploring local history and archaeology. Within a 10 mile radius there are sites of interest spanning 5000 years. The Neolithic Passage graves of Newgrange & Knowth, Celtic High crosses at Kells & Monasterboice, Cistertercian Mellifont Abbey, Norman Trim Castle. The relic of Saint Oliver Plunkett’s Scull in one church in Drogheda and some glorious Harry Clark stained glass windows in another. In my day Drogheda was a ‘one donkey town’ but now it supports a local history Museum (the brutality of Oliver Cromwell) and a Modern Art Gallery in a former Franciscan friary church.
Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda has a painting by John Cassidy [b. Slane, Ireland 1860 – d. Cheshire, England 1939]. He travelled to Manchester to study at the College of Art when he was 22 yrs. Frequently exhibiting in Manchester City Art Gallery who have several examples of his work. His statue of Edward VII graces Whitworth Park in Manchester. I really looked at this sculpture for the first time instead of just dismissing it as another stature of a dead monarch. It is rather special and well worth pausing to look at closely, I found his name at the base of the sculpture above the plinth.
- Adele Jennison on Facebook: I’m a huge fan of so much contemporary art, but this historic work [Extreme Unction] is STUNNING. I feel so proud to be an Art Fund member!
Page 76 of Art Quarterly. I think she had just been to the Fitzwilliam, Cambridge.
joanatfow 