by Enid O'Dowd
Oh, and also because of a dubious marking system in which St Luke’s got laughable low marks which suited the ‘outcome’ for the experts and convinced the government that they had discovered a secret magic wand that will cure all our health services ills.
The government is convinced that they must follow the European and Canadian model of centralised services but they are failing to take into account that Ireland is a much smaller country with a much smaller population than the rest of Europe where this ‘model’ is implemented. They are following advice given in a completely different era when our economy was booming and at a time when Ireland was busy selling its soul to the Celtic Tiger. St Luke’s did not fit it with a mindset that big is beautiful and centralised services offer better outcomes. This is not suitable for little old Ireland.
Furthermore, nobody asked the people that really matter- the patients and their families- what they thought. Nobody asked the bereaved who were comforted by the treatment that their loved ones got in their final days in a haven of spiritual peace.
I would prefer to die in St Luke’s a week earlier than die in a huge noisy, busy medical centre that had extended my unhappy existence artificially through the most modern of equipment, while, outside, my nearest and dearest frantically tried to get parking before I breathed my last. That is not the outcome I want. Am I being selfish?
We need to have St Luke’s as a symbol of what Ireland stands for now and into the future; a proud symbol for the next generation of Irishmen and women. If St Luke’s is saved, future generations will recognise that Irish politicians in 2010 recovered their senses and did not sell their souls based on bombastic bean-counters’ baloney.
If St Luke’s closes, we might as well give up on our values as a society. It is more than just a hospital close to many people’s hearts.
It is an oasis of sensibility in a crazy world; it is Irish society working at its best; it is a national asset; a proud symbol of the caring Ireland that we are now striving to return to in the aftermath of our economic madness.
Instead of closing, St Luke’s should be promoted as the flagship of the type of holistic health service we can deliver in Ireland when we harness our best resources; our people’s spiritual and material generosity.
When I left St Luke’s, I had made many friends within the staff. Some of those friends keep in touch through Facebook, the internet social network site. Six months after I left, battling my way through a chemotherapy regime that did weird things to my appetite so that I got hankerings for strange foods, I mentioned on Facebook that I would love to taste Gur Cake again; a taste memory from my Dublin childhood. One of my new friends picked up on that post and immediately went to work. Her sister was commandeered to make Gur Cake and she sent it down to Donegal to me via the Friends of Letterkenny St Luke’s bus that conveys patients to and from the hospital.
Her EM message to me was; ‘anything is possible for a St Luke’s patient’. I rest my case.
Ciaran Corry
Letterkenny, Co Donegal
‘To help patients make a good recovery from cancer and to help patients cope with a terminal diagnosis you need more than just medical intervention…’
At the age of 29 I was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Thankfully I have now reached the five year all clear.
I spent over 6 weeks in St Luke’s hospital receiving radiotherapy and chemo therapy in 2005. As everyone knows getting a diagnosis of cancer is so difficult for the person; however it is just as difficult for the family and friends.
I can remember so clearly the first day I attended St Luke’s and being amazed at the setting and how peaceful a hospital it was, I had passed it so many times but never knew where it was.
I am a nurse so I have been to various hospitals and I have also worked in St James’s Hospital. It is also an excellent hospital; however to help patients make a good recovery from cancer and to help patients cope with a terminal diagnosis you need more than just medical intervention.
Quality of life also includes having a peaceful setting when you were having off days which unfortunately during treatment were frequent.
On a good day the difference it made to go outside and sit in the gardens or go for a stroll and feel completely safe everywhere you went.
For my family they could come up and down and stay with me as long as was needed and not worry about parking and safety of their car and the cost.
I know that there is sometimes a need for patients to be transferred over for more detailed medical care. However the benefits for being in a small hospital for all your other time far outweighs the other.
James’s Hospital is a very large hospital with a huge need for security within the hospital and grounds. It is a noisy busy place and parking is expensive. The grounds are now all built up and the grounds are not always safe to walk in due to muggings etc.
I would always say that the Minister for Health needs to go into St James Hospital and observe for one full week on nights in the A & E Department. Although I recognise the need for some patients to stay in a hospital like James’s during treatment, I would argue not all will require surgery and the benefits that St Luke’s offers towards recovery for patients must be considered and recognition that both services are needed.
The personal care of a small hospital and its facilities are vital for recovery so I beg all of you to continue to support St Luke’s and the fight to keep it open.
Collette Connolly
Laragh, Co Wicklow
‘Luke’s gave us another year with our lovely mother’
Moving St Luke’s to Beaumont or James’s will make it just another crowded hospital, instead of the special and peaceful sanctuary that it is today.
My mother Teresa Doyle, Ballytegan Park, Gorey, County Wexford attended St Luke’s Hospital in August and October 2006. She was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and she had her radiotherapy in St Luke’s before undergoing an operation at Beaumont Hospital.
She later returned there for her scans after the operation. During the last three years of her life, my Mum spent time in Wexford General Hospital, Beaumount, St Luke’s and Waterford Regional Hospital.
Although my mother was well looked after in all of the hospitals mentioned (first and foremost by the wonderful nurses), she hated being in hospital as she could never sleep with the constant noise and over crowding.
She especially didn’t like the morning consultants’ visits where a crowd of doctors and nurses would surround her bed, close the curtains and give her the daily update, with no family present for support.
The only place that my Mum didn’t feel she was in a hospital was St Luke’s. She said it was more like a hotel and she was treated like a princess by the staff instead of just another sick patient. My Dad was able to take her out into the garden in between treatments which she loved, as 2006 was a really hot summer and she loved being outside in the fine weather.
As you can imagine, spending long periods in hospitals has a negative effect on every sick person, but after her time in St Luke’s my Mum’s spirits were lifted and she was more mentally prepared for her operation in Beaumont.
Because of the wonderful care and excellent treatment that my Mum received at St Luke’s Hospital, we had an extra year with our lovely mother, a year we wouldn’t have had if such a facility wasn’t available in Ireland.
I would like to think that the staff at St Luke’s would be receiving a medal and salary increases for their exceptional work instead of the stress resulting from the decision to close Luke’s and the upheaval for them and their families.
In my mind it is all very simple, “if it’s not broken, why try to fix it”?!!
The people of Ireland need to stand up for their rights and to stop voting for Politician’s who want to close down the few good hospitals that we have, in a country that is literally riddled with cancer.
Facilities for cancer patients should be made a priority, and I honestly can’t understand how closing down St Luk
e’s Hospital ever made it to a discussion table!
In memory of Teresa Doyle, Ballytegan Park, Gorey, Co. Wexford who sadly passed away on 11 August 2007. R.I.P. Mam, we were the luckiest kids in the world to have had you as our amazing, caring and loving mother.
Fiona Doyle
Co Wexford
Listen to the voices of those who know…’
Thinking back on the events of 2000, when I was first diagnosed with cancer, and only 29 years old, I had no idea of what was ahead, who was ahead or how to go ahead.
Being diagnosed with testicular cancer was one of those moments where you physically feel time stop!
Having been told that the cancer was encapsulated and that a simple routine operation followed by 11 courses of radiotherapy in St Luke’s was the answer, I clapped my hands and said OK! When do I begin?
I had surgery at Clane Hospital and later my retroperitonal lymph nodes were ‘blasted’ at Luke’s.
I was most optimistic about everything. Why?
Perhaps because I had known relatives and friends who had entered St Luke’s before me as patients and had come out with wonderful stories regarding the care and attention they received - and better still had come out in a far better shape mentally and physically than when they entered.
To me St Luke’s was a place that worked miracles in the light of high demand and finite resources.
My turn came and I entered St Luke’s as an outpatient having finished a day of teaching. The nurses, and consultant I was under, were most reassuring at every moment which immediately calmed any of the little fears I might have had roaming about in my mind. In fact I was made to feel so at ease with St Luke’s and the treatment I was receiving that I opted to have my radiotherapy after I had finished my day of teaching!
I had no fear at all.
In fact having a brief opportunity to see the correspondence that flowed from my consultant in St. Luke’s Hospital to my consultant in Clane Hospital, I was amused to read that he was very surprised at how well I was responding to the treatment both mentally and physically and felt it was rather remarkable! That letter is a tribute to the special care that the hospital and its staff have provided to those entrusted to their care.
Perhaps the most striking thing I noticed as I waited in line to be treated was the wide range of people presenting for treatment: people of all ages and with various other physical and emotional needs. Not one of these folk were left feeling in any way neglected. All were given the attention they needed at that moment, and made to feel that nothing else mattered but the patient in those moments of personal attention. For many patients, this personal touch received from the staff is the first step in their treatment. It certainly worked it’s magic on me. There was no dull moment there; there was no fear there, only care and compassion. Time was given to healing the person and the illness and I think that is what I take with me from St Luke’s, 10 years on.
It is so easy for me to verbalise what I have been through because I look back with thanks. It’s easy for me to praise because of my experience.
To those who are fixed on closing this fine establishment, which was founded by the Cancer Association of Ireland, I say this: It is easy to flex muscle from a distance; it is easy to make decisions that affect thousands of patients and beneficiaries because you have no experience in your heart of what a place like St Luke’s actually does.
Listen to the voices of those who know and for once put heart above finance; compassion above concern and do no further damage.
Fergal O’Neill
Naas, Co Kildare
‘How could any minister with any heart at all deny cancer patients the care and personal attention you get in Luke’s…?’
I was diagnosed with Prostate cancer in 2005 and was referred to a doctor at Sligo General Hospital.
I chose to go to St Luke’s because I had free rail transport between Carrick-on Shannon and Dublin because of its excellent reputation. I entered Luke’s on 28 July 2006 for 38 days radium treatment full of nerves and fear. Inside was this big bright reception area which was very welcoming at this bleak time. I decided to stay in the hospital rather than in the lodge and was escorted down a long corridor to a ward that was my home for 4 nights a week for 8 weeks. The nurses and all the staff were more than kind to me all that time as were the staff who administered the radium. I cannot praise them enough.
I was not long there when one morning sitting on a seat under a big beech tree I met Joe Guilfoyle who has become a very good friend since. He told me of a rumour about St Luke’s closing down. It was as if a bomb dropped with all the patients.
How could any minister with any heart at all deny cancer patients the care and personal attention you get in St Luke’s with such beautiful landscaped gardens, walks, trees and flowers to take your mind off yourself and distract you from the cancer treatment.
Joe acted immediately and that weekend we all had petitions for signatures to take home with us. We collected thousands of signatures. There are not many people in Ireland but had some relative or friend pass through St Luke’s Hospital.
All the people are not wrong this time. Minister, please keep St Luke’s open for a long time as a centre of excellence.
A thankful patient
Willie Moran
Drumshambo
Co Leitrim.
‘At seventeen, I had only ever seen seriously sick people on TV…’
Seated in an examination room in St Luke’s, news that I was to get a course of both chemotherapy and radiotherapy came as a shock. It was given to me very straight and professionally by the doctor.
Leaving the room, I was a little shaken, then a nurse called me aside to take a “few extra little details”. Her real intention was to reassure me and explain a little further about what would be involved. She spent the next 45 minutes or so going through what was expected, particularly in regard to undergoing the chemo.
At seventeen, I had only ever seen seriously sick people on TV. Never would I have imagined that it could have happened to me. She explained that I would lose my hair and how the chemo itself would react with my body, making me vomit. This all sounded very frightening to me. However, she was very calming and by the time she’d finished I was concerned very little about what lay ahead. As we parted, with a wink she said “get yourself a pint with your mates later, you’ve earned it”.
That was my first real chat with one of the staff of the unique hospital that is St Luke’s. She had made an impression on me there and then within 45 minutes that I’ll never forget. Having had my life plunged into crisis, she had restored it to stability within that short space of time. This was obviously an ability she had garnered over several years of dealing with people in similar situations.
Over the coming months, during my treatment, I began to form friendships with various other members of the staff. Each had a warm and unique way of making me feel welcome and at home. This, I always felt was distinctive to St Luke’s. Growing up, I had visited many different hospitals on occasions. As a child, I often had convulsions similar to those brought on by epilepsy and this earned me many visits to the different hospitals of the capital. Then there were occasions for minor surgery such as when I had my tonsils removed and on a rare occasion or two I had an ‘emergency’. For example, I once spent three weeks in James’s burns unit as a result of a bonfire accident.
However, of all the memories I have of these institutions, none are as warm as those I have of St Luke’s. I believe, the building, the staff and the overall atmosphere tends to impact on the lives of those who pass through Luke’s in a way that is not possible to replicate elsewhere.
The friendships and acquaintances that I made in my time at Luke’s have formed a part of my character and this I believe is what defines St Luke’s and engraves it in the hearts of all who have entered its doors.
There are hundreds of occasions I could outline that illustrate the environment, atmosphere and the staff that is St Luke’s, but I’
m sure that others contributing to this book, can paint a more befitting picture of it than me. I will make just one point however. Since receiving treatment several years ago, my life has been transformed and has taken on a whole new direction and impetus. I have often been asked what it was like to have received treatment for cancer and it comes as a surprise to many when I suggest that it was one of the greatest events of my life. The reason I describe it in this way is because St Luke’s and the atmosphere there, showed me the caring, respectful and courageous sides that exist in many people which are normally never seen. As an in-patient, the staff were continually upbeat, positive and caring about my treatment. They refused to let me get down or depressed. I was introduced to other people my own age who were receiving treatment, most of whom were fighting a cancer much more severe than mine. This allowed us to develop friendships and to relate to people of our own age when all my regular friends found it hard to understand. One girl who became a particularly good friend to me was Tara. The laughs, chats and fun we shared at that time will never leave me. She was continually upbeat and a tough fighter. Even in a place that often brought bad news and sorrow; friendships, encouragement and positive outlooks thrived. It is for these reasons that I often describe my treatment to friends as a great event in my life.
In reality, it was not the treatment of cancer I received that was so great but my time spent in St Luke’s and it is for this reason that I am greatly saddened about its impending closure. I know that what I experienced there will not be witnessed elsewhere by other cancer patients.
The current thinking in modern Ireland is to create ‘centres of excellence’. I truly believe that the government of today are doing the exact opposite and destroying one of the greatest ‘centres of excellence’ already in existence in Ireland. There is much more to a ‘centre of excellence’ than just walls, equipment and consultants. There is the experience, friendship and the spirit of environment that breathes life into all who pass through it. Unfortunately, the intangibles are often over-looked and will only be missed when gone. In finishing, I’d like to thank all those that have made such an impact on my life and continue to do so through my experience of St Luke’s. The hospital may close and the equipment and people may move but my thoughts, memories and experiences will always remain.