Welcome to this week’s issue of The Week in Medicine – a round-up of all the happenings in the world of Irish medicine Even though we don’t have the results yet, the local and European elections are over, and health hardly featured in issues discussed by the candidates. The announcement by the government that hospital bed numbers would be increased dramatically a few weeks ago probably removed health as an issue, or at least forced it into the background. Which is a pity as there is a lot more to health policy than the willingness to direct money into hospital bed numbers, and a debate on local health needs around the country might have brought attention to local issues, a focus which is badly needed.
It is a truism to say that all politics is local, but nearly all health issues are also local. An opportunity missed. However, elections are a lot more heat than light, and we were unlikely to get a nuanced and thought-provoking debate in an atmosphere where simply shouting slogans and telling outright lies seems to be a far more successful strategy.
An African-American Republican – Byron Donalds – claimed last week that black people had a better life under the Jim Crow laws – perhaps the most racist and prejudicial set of laws ever to marginalise a certain group of people, worse perhaps that South African apartheid, and it only stirred a minor scuffle online. In Las Vegas, at a rally Trump said: “I don’t want anybody going on me, we need every voter, I don’t c.