At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was initially believed that the main vectors of virus transmission were via droplets and fomites. However, airborne transmission was subsequently confirmed with studies concluding that the “transmission of SARS-CoV-2 occurred preferentially indoors, suggesting a need for...

The health service is under serious pressure. Our Government struggles to cope with a jaw-dropping escalation of costs. A fairly recent visit to our local ED, where I found a multitude of doctors struggling to cope with the flow of patients, confirmed to me that us rural doctors are being replaced by a growing...

In 1907, ‘Declan’, a 35-year-old plumber was admitted to Richmond District Lunatic Asylum (later St Brendan’s Hospital) in Grangegorman, Dublin. Declan’s father told the admitting doctor that “we have often seen him wash his hands ten times in half a hour, dry each time, then wash water tap and pipe down to...

A cancer diagnosis within a family is always a traumatic event, with the impact amplified when it concerns a child being diagnosed. There are approximately 200 cases of cancer diagnosed in the children under the age of 16 years in Ireland annually and it remains the primary disease-related cause of death in...

Gambling disorder is a medical condition that causes severe consequences for the individual and many people around the individual. Until 2013 gambling addiction was not considered worthy of classification as an addiction in classificatory systems, sitting in a category of ‘impulse control disorder’, with...