Today we learnt that even in Germany, there are, besides the excellent nurses, also unexperienced nurses. In most professions, there are different levels of professionalism. Healthcare is not different. Today, ‘Herr Schäler’ was not looked after as he has become accustomed to – he was not taken off the ventilator for long enough, they didn’t sit him up in the chair-bed, and his oxygen saturation went down to around 90 – which would not be so bad with an elderly person, in his case it is far too low.
Good thing is: there are always doctors on the ward who can intervene. Pat asked one to check Pádraig out to see whether he needed suctioning; he did, and he also needed to be turned to loosen the phlegm on the other side of his lungs. The doctor also explained to the nurse what to look out for, stressing that the level of oxygen saturation for someone like Pádraig, needed to be close to 100% – especially if he is on a ventilator.
While I was driving on the Irish Autobahn, I heard on the radio that moneys collected
Wo soll das alles enden?
for charities funded by the HSE was used to break accepted salaries agreements. The National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire offered a ‘top-up’ to the salary of consultants, already earning way above 100k, and in some cases more than 200 k. The National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire, is one of the hospitals mentioned in the report where top-ups have been provided to some staff. In the case of the Central Remedial Clinic (CRC), top-ups were given, against existing guidelines and regulations, involving charitable organizations. – Where will it all end?
Today’s German Music Tip
Kraftwerk, Autobahn (1974) (There are different versions of this song on the web, this one shows the German text with its translation into English. It’s the 3:27 single version of the original 22 minute title track of the band’s fourth album.)
What’s hot
Autobahn
What’s cold
Using charitable funds to top up consultants’ salaries
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Skandalös (disgraceful)
Wo soll das alles enden? (Where will all this lead to?)
Hospi-Tales 
Hello, Reinhard. I note your name is now coming to the fore on my predictive text. The name ‘Pádraig’ has been there in pride of place for some time, so now you’ve joined him! I am very sorry to hear that Pádraig got less than optimum treatment from a staff member, and I sincerely hope this was an aberration and won’t happen again.
I was just wondering yesterday if the controversies around top-up payments will affect charitable donations to the organisations in question, especially coming up to Christmas when people might be thinking more than usual of making such donations. I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t be affected. I was reading a booklet yesterday evening, produced by the ACOI (Association of Compliance Officers of Ireland – and I apologise to them if I’ve got that title slightly wrong). They were making the point that culture tends to trump regulation, i.e. there can be rules and standards and so on but ‘the way things are done around here’ tends to prevail.
All the very best, Louise.
Funny you’d be saying this, Louise. After 27 years in Ireland, colleagues still look at me in bewilderment sometimes when I say how surprised I was that something was allowed to happen, or that something did not not happen although is should have – according to the agreements, or contracts, or regulations. They look at me and ask ‘Reinhard, for how many years have you been living here… and you still haven’t learned that this is the way that things are done here’.
Hello again, Reinhard. Not surprising that your friends and colleagues say what they say!
Your sense of exile really does come across in your last few posts … not surprisingly. Even the logistics of the travelling and so on would be challenging on their own, without the huge emotional burdens that are being carried.
I decided to go to Mass in the Inter Faith centre, for Advent, on the days that I can. So I went along today. The gospel was about the centurion whose servant is very ill and who asks Jesus to cure him. It’s one I really like, though I’m sorry to say I hadn’t realised until today that it exists in Matthew (as in today) as well as in Luke (as in 16 September 2013 – now, how did I know that!). I thought of Pádraig – though it would be more accurate to say that I focused on the thought about him that was already there.
I won’t be going to any Mass on Wednesday, however, as I’m meeting Pat for lunch.
I’m doing a bit of work for my Business Ethics essay. It’s going to be around the topic of university league tables. I’m not sure what the focus will be: whether on the concept of league tables, on the bases on which the work of drawing them up is carried out, on the ways the results are used by the universities themselves … this is a 5,000-word essay, not a PhD, so I need to cut my cloth. You will notice that the ‘business’ in ‘Business Ethics’ permits of a catholic (perhaps even a Catholic) approach. I will need to advert to stakeholder theory in the essay, bearing in mind that universities have, potentially, so many stakeholders that the concept risks becoming meaningless. I will be submitting this essay together with my other 5,000-word essay on the morning of Friday 17 January, prior to getting the plane to Hamburg in the middle of the day. (Well, I might get to submit one of them before that date.) This means, unfortunately, that I won’t have the benefit of a face-to-face conversation with you before I start to write. I have no doubt such a conversation would be both useful and enjoyable!
All the very best,
Louise
Hello Louise, yes – the centurion story is both in Matthew (8:5-13) and Luke (7:1-10) (now, how did I know that?:). One interesting point of that story that I never thought about was that it involved, maybe for the first time, distance-healing (thought there is another, or indeed the same?, distance-healing event reported by John (4:46-54)). What it is telling me is that it is the thought that counts, distance doesn’t matter. – About the stakeholder theory stuff, it sounds like a fairly difficult topic (that’s why you are studying it, right?) and very hard to define. Would there be a connection with Corporate Social Responsibility and Non-market Strategies? Anyways …
Hello, Reinhard,
Well, you certainly sent me beetling off to look up John 4:46-54. Just at the weekend, I picked up a plan for reading the Bible in a year. I’m not going to embark on it at this point, because I wouldn’t have time to do it justice (what with the MA, not to mention the rarely-mentioned-but-very-important day job). Plus, I would want to do the readings in both languages. I have a copy of the Bible in Irish, signed by the translator, An tAthair Pádraig Ó Fiannachta (An tAthair Pádraig kindly provided the signature at my request, way back in 198xxx when I was given a present of the Bíobla by another person). It’s not exactly what you would call a well-thumbed book. But some day …
Corporate Social Responsibility … yes, I have it coming out my ears these evenings. Non-market Strategies … we haven’t discussed this topic as such, but it would appear to belong to the same family. I feel fortunate to be in a class where many of the others are much heavier hitters, business-wise, than I am. I learn from them. Now, if the focus of the classes were about higher education, perhaps they would learn from me … but it’s not, nor is it supposed to be. Anyway, I get plenty of HE to be going on with in the day job!
All the best,
Louise
I would have thought this lad is talking about stakeholders: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDE5GzuYqUY?
Hello, Reinhard,
You know when you read an article and there’s a footnote that says: ‘I wish to acknoweldge X, who drew my attention to Y/pointed out Z/made suggestions as to ABC? You have a busy future ahead in that capacity!
Best wishes,
Louise
It’s because I’m not writing anything myself:)
Dear Reinhard,
You are most forebearing, considering that yesterday I all but promised you a bright future as a footnote!
Best wishes,
Louise
Dear Reinhard,
My apologies – I meant forbearing, not forebearing. (Spelling errors on a blog! The very idea!)
With best wishes,
Louise