Human connection must not be lost in healthcare
Sir, – Muiris Houston (Health & Family, June 3rd) once again reminds us of the importance of kindness and the human connection: “A recent opinion piece in the British Medical Journal argue that modern healthcare is facing a moral emergency” – who could disagree.Patients increasingly feel processed rather than cared for – as if following a business model. This is happening at speed in so many areas of work in the statutory and voluntary sector.To move forward we must first acknowledge that fact. The Physician’s Prayer, the words of Robert Hutchison (1873 – 1960) of the London Hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital and the president of the Royal College of Physicians continue to remind me of the challenges facing us all:READ MOREErupcja review: Charli XCX has real screen clout in this appealing romantic dramaFergus Slattery was, quite simply, a god of rugbyFrank McNally: Remembering Tomi Reichental - a gentle man who never gave in to bitternessPaul O’Donovan on the Irish rowing controversy: ‘No one wants anyone to experience anything like that’“From inability to let well alone, from too much zeal for the new and contempt for what is old, from putting knowledge before wisdom, science before art and cleverness before common sense, from treating patients as cases and from making the cure of the disease more grievous than the endurance of the same, good Lord deliver us”. Yours, etc, ALICE LEAHY,Director of Services,Alice Leahy Trust,Bride Road, Dublin 8.
