Ireland's Eye: What's going on in the old sod this week

A look at news from around Ireland

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Pro breastfeeding protest at Facebook. Norah Storey (left) and her 5 and a half month old son Ben and Marika Dunne and her 15 week old daughter Rika travelled from Waterford to protest outside Facebook's headquarters in Dublin today protesting about the social networking site's policy of removing pictures of mothers breastfeeding their children.

Photo by Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland

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In relation to advertising, he said that alcohol brands sponsoring big sporting events is a huge problem here.

“With things like the Heineken Cup, you have small children associating alcohol with positive healthy images of sports people achieving goals,” he said.

“Even the drink aware ads tell you to ‘enjoy’ alcohol responsibly, but if there were ads telling you to enjoy heroin responsibly, there would be uproar. The word enjoy shouldn’t be used. Why not say ‘use’ or ‘consume’ -- even in the health warning, there is a bit of a sales pitch.”

Grant said that people see the cheaply priced drink and they don’t see the full effects of what it could do to them.

He said, “I would deal with a lot of family members of alcoholics and their lives have been turned upside down.”

Grant said that the government could be trying to move towards the Swedish model of selling alcohol in one place only, but that doesn’t eradicate the alcohol problem.

He said that in Sweden the sale of alcohol is heavily restricted, but they still have a huge societal problem with alcohol addiction.

Grant said that as a country, Ireland has moved away from the culture of drinking in the pub to drinking wine at home in the evenings, and that people have become much more casual about their drinking.

He said, “People don’t take the unit limit seriously and they could be drinking two or three times the limit, without thinking that anything is wrong.”
 
Waterford News &Star

Hospital Smoke Out
THE sight of men and women in their pajamas smoking at the front of Our Lady of Lourdes hospital may well be a thing of the past if a new policy within the Louth Meath Hospital Group is adhered to.

From February 22, which also happens to be Ash Wednesday and National No Smoking Day, hospitals within the group will become tobacco free campuses.  This means smoking will not be permitted anywhere on the hospital grounds or campus.

The policy, which will apply to all staff, patients, visitors contractors and anyone who enters the hospital buildings/grounds, will ensure a healthier, safer and cleaner environment for all and better health outcomes for patients and staff.

“As a major provider of health care in the community, our mission is to create a healthy environment for our patients, visitors and employees,” Margaret Swords, group general manager of Louth Meath Hospital Group said.

All efforts are being made to inform patients of this new policy in advance of their admission to hospital. Patients who smoke will be referred to the hospital's free smoking cessation service and will be offered free nicotine replacement therapy during their hospital stay. 

Drogheda Independent

MEDICAL staff are refusing to visit patients in Erris because the roads leading to their homes are in such a horrendous condition.

Young babies and the elderly are no longer receiving medical treatment at home due to the state of the roads. And any hope of getting the roads repaired has been quenched now that Local Improvement Scheme (LIS) funding has been cut.

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