It cannot continue like this. What we want is change.

I lived my life twice. Moving to Ireland made me re-live much of my earlier life for a second time: at the beginning I wasn’t sure whether I had understood correctly but then there was no doubt: homosexuality was a criminal offense, condoms were sold by Trinity Student Union illegally, Nell McCafferty and her friends were bringing them down to Dublin from the North, abortion was exported to England, divorce non-existent.

Today, investment in neurorehab is a human right, but a bad investment. We just cannot afford more than three beds, for the whole country. To reduce waiting time, we reduce the time that patients are being treated. To three months. That should be enough.

When I meet James Reilly and his officials, ‘without delay’, I will tell them, with a dignified sense of urgency, that the country will have adequate neurorehabilitation facilities. Whether he wants it or not. It will have these services exactly because providing this service to those who suffer most is an ethical imperative.

Someone who knew what she was talking about mentioned Kant in this context recently. In his Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, Kant posited the “counter-utilitarian idea that there is a difference between preferences and values and that considerations of individual rights temper calculations of aggregate utility”, a concept that is an axiom in economics: “Everything has either a price or a dignity. Whatever has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; on the other hand, whatever is above all price, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity. But that which constitutes the condition under which alone something can be an end in itself does not have mere relative worth, i.e., price, but an intrinsic worth, i.e., a dignity” (p. 53).

The care for those amongst us who most need it does not have a price. It is a question of dignity.

Perceiving it as a bad investment to care for old people (who are going to die soon anyway), very sick people in hospices (they will be dying of their decease very soon and cannot be healed) or patients like Pádraig (with very severe brain injuries who require urgent early neuro rehabilitation) is either utilitarian, or daft, or barbarian.

We have not seen Pádraig’s oxygen levels as high and his pulse so low for a long time. I is totally relaxed having been looked after by a nurse that really knows him and really cares for him. The difference that this makes in incredible. He also had an old (no offense:) friend visiting him, bringing Gaeilge into Pádraig’s room again. We all fell Pádraig’s presence, his ear for interesting and not-so-interesting things. His nurse has booked a dentist to call in next week (a dentist, imagine!) because she is worried about some of his teeth. Now, how nice is that? I remember the answer we got in Beaumont when we asked for a dentist. The question itself was beyond comprehension in Pádraig’s circumstances. A dentist?

Today’s German Music Tip
Jazzkantine, Im Frühtau zu Berge (2012). Really very different version of an old German folk song.

Werft ab alle Sorgen und Qual,
Falera
Kommt mit auf die Höhen aus dem Tal,
Falera
Wir sind hinaus gegangen
Den Sonnenschein zu fangen
Kommt mit und versucht es doch selbst einmal.

What’s hot
Dentist
What’s cold
Utalitarianism

The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Schmuckstück

Twitter: @forPadraig
#caringforPadraig
http://www.caringforPadraig.org