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Tag: Sinéad Fitzgerald

  • The Gym: My New Sports Ground

    DIT College gym bike room.
    DIT College gym. Bike room. Photo by Sinead Fitzgerald

    By Sinéad Fitzgerald

    Sports aren’t really my thing. I need to be more competitive or so I’ve been told. A refusal to throw yourself on tarmac or in front of a speeding missile, apparently won’t get you to a final. But I’ll play anything on a friendly basis and I was fine with that. Until I found the gym. As an undergraduate, with the facilities there waiting when I had free periods, I found my sport.

    Nobody at the gym knew me, or cared how much I did or did not improve. I had no intention of being first in line for the treadmill, or the first to admit defeat to spinning, so finally, sport had to be mastered, not just played. And there was a distinct and probably not that healthy measure of success. A calorie counter. Would a pedometer have done the same thing? Yes, maybe, but to me, beating my own ‘score’ alone wouldn’t make me Master of a particular machine. This was about endurance. The longer I could keep going the better. The rowing machine in particular. This is about the effort put into each pulling motion and man or woman beside me, I was not getting left behind.

    I have noticed many different types of people at the gym, those who spend maybe fifteen to twenty minutes on two or three machines and probably do this quite regularly, people who will stay on one machine for over forty minutes or longer, and then might move on to something else for a shorter or equal length of time, people who stay on one machine for an hour or more. The first time in DIT gym that I had to acknowledge I was going to lose  a competition,  was on the cross trainer. Forty minutes against a girl with dark hair and a blue t-shirt, who got on before me and still seemed entirely unaffected. I’m preparing for the rematch.

    I love the feeling of de stressing I’ve come to associate with a room of treadmills, indoor rowers, stack machines and gym users. That part I would recommend. There are better ways to use a gym I am sure, and talking to the staff members at any facility will put you on the right track. But my way works for me and in the words of Christina Aguilera who is on my playlist, ‘Thanks for making me a fighter.’ (Finally).

  • Retention fee standoff threat to health system

    St Vincent’s Hospital (Photo: Sinéad Fitzgerald)

     

    It goes without saying how important our Nursing staff are to our Health system. There are currently in and around 60,000 nurses on the Irish Register. Each year they pay a retention fee in order to remain on the register and therefore be legally entitled to practice. The figure for the fee was €100 but has now gone up by 50%. Across the country, and with the support of staff unions, predominantly the INMO, (Irish Nursing and Midwives Organisation), Nurses and Midwives have rallied against the increase.

    Dean Flanagan, student Nurse and representative of the INMO, argues against the increase of the retention fee on the basis that it is the straw to break the camel’s back. ‘Outside of the registration fee the main thing has has been the Frontline cuts. The pay cuts and staffing cuts. Over the last five years there has been a loss of 5,000 nurses.’ From the perspective of the 1,500 student nurses trained a year, he points out, this means a loss of mentors. ‘They don’t have the support of five or six years ago.’ I asked for the number of nurses that have already paid the new fee of €150 and Dean replies, ‘From the latest figures published by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI), where the fees go directly, there is no third party, there are around 60,000 nurses on the register. Around 18,000 have paid.’

    As the NMBI is a self-sufficient body, funding has to come from within, but as Flanagan points out, the issue isn’t with the existence of the fee itself. Only recently have the NMBI published accounts of how the registration fee is spent and one bone of contention is the money spent on Q4, a public relations representative. The NMBI handle cases of fitness to practice and Flanagan states, ‘Before an outcome is determined all accusations are in the public domain.’ He also states that the last two years student nurses pay €20 to go on the student register. It will take another two years to find out whether this is on top of the proposed €150. Flanagan comments, ‘They have not said it will even stay at €150.’

    In an open response to a letter from Kevin Figgis, Sector Organiser in SIPTU’s Health Division published on its website, the NMBI states, ‘The NMBI regrets that it has had to make the increase but the fee has been kept as low as possible for as long as possible. It was made clear at the time of legislation that the Board would continue to be self-funding and needed to plan and cost to fulfil its legal obligations. Following detailed negotiations with the Executive and Board members in 2013 it was agreed in October 2013 that an initial once-off sum of €1.6m would be granted by the Department of Health to the Board to cover 2013/2014 costs but that the board would have to increase its income in 2015 to undertake its commitments in the legislation.

    Karen Canning, a nurse for 35 years and founder of a popular Facebook page for nurses and midwives opposed to the increase in the fee, has said ‘They have said they won’t keep us on the register if we don’t pay the €150 but some have paid €100 and their cheques have been cashed.’ The INMO have produced badges for those who have only paid €100. In four years there have been three increases to the registration fee and Canning adds, ‘We’ve taken pay cuts or reduced hours. We’ve got the same bills as anyone else. The NMBI do not fund or run courses, they do not pay us to take courses, a lot of us fund it ourselves.’

    The City contacted the NMBI but did not receive a response.

    By Sinéad Fitzgerald

  • The Walworth Farce

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    Watching Brendan, Dónal and Brian Gleeson in action in their performance of Enda Walsh’s ‘The Walworth Farce’ is a confusing, funny and disturbing experience. The play is kept alive for the duration of two hours thanks to Dónal’s noteworthy levels of energy and Brian’s thought provoking portrayal of a character living a nonsensical life out of fear, both of his father and his memories, and a deep-rooted loyalty to his brother.

    The play is set in a small flat in London that uses crude props to give a non-existent audience the impression of grandeur. Dinny, the tyrannical father ably played by Gleeson senior, is living each day desperately trying to believe his own version of the events which caused him to leave Ireland, and has swept his sons into his time warp. They begin each day dressing for the roles they will play, in Blake’s (Dónal’s) case, a collection of female relatives, in Dinny’s a younger version of himself and in Seán’s (Brian’s), a medley of all the remaining adult male roles needed to complete the story. Both boys also play the roles of two young children, likely the boisterous characters their father feels they should have been. Seán is sent to Tesco every morning at ten o clock to buy the foods the family requires for a daily funeral reception, roast chicken, sliced white pan and pink wafers. It’s the fact that Seán leaves the house every morning that causes his father to doubt his loyalty, accusing him of ‘enjoying it.’ Seán is therefore the victim of his father’s fist quite early on. Dinny has raised the two boys to have a paralysing fear of the outside, they believe non family members cannot be trusted and that leaving would cause them to be dragged down by outside forces.

    Each day ends with the awarding of a trophy to the best actor in the family. Dinny invariably wins the trophy every day despite his only having to play himself compared to the entire cast Blake and Seán play between them. The entire family hold onto the constructed narrative to guard their tenuous grip on sanity but there is a sense that Seán could move on from the life he has been psychologically trapped into. This belief is solidified by the arrival of Haley in the narrative. Seán talks about her to Blake in an effort to convince him that there could be good reason to leave the house, during a conversation in which Blake admits that it is his memories of his mother that keep him going. Haley’s arrival at the house in the second half of the play causes the story to begin to unravel because she cannot help but bring realism with her. Her predicament in arriving at a house where the same day is lived over and over again, where no one can leave causes Blake to make a devastating decision.

    Showings run until the 8th of February, when one night will be in aid of St Francis Hospice.

    Sinéad Fitzgerald