12th June 2000
Thin soled shoes are made thinner still by rain. On Tuesday a few weeks ago, in those couple of days that were summer, I left Dublin for a meeting in London. It was the monsoon season there and no taxis meant I did a lot of walking on pavements that would have done credit to Dublin Corporation.
The next day, back in Dublin, I found I had an agonising pain in my right foot. This being Wednesday I did a clinic and then went to the Seanad. My office is in a building across Kildare Street from Leinster House. I was hobbling around rather like those donkeys who don't take enough care of their toe nails and, as a punishment, live permanently in the centre of west of Ireland roads. Colleagues said I should Do Something About Myself.
After the last vote in the Seanad it was too late in the evening to Do Something About Myself so I went home. Thursday, the foot didn't seem so bad but on Friday it was dreadful again. So I Did Something About Myself. I phoned my friendly chiropodist. Her secretary said she could see me in two weeks time. When I Explained that I would be on my knees by then she suggested I come on Monday.
Terrible Saturday and Sunday, another clinic on Monday where I ask patients to pray for me. One suggests my Karma (what, or who, is that?) is the problem. Chiropody session at lunch time cheers me greatly, even though the chiropodist says she can't see too much wrong, but I have Done Something About Myself so I feel better.
Tuesday, Wednesday agony again. There seems to be votes in the Seanad every ten minutes involving me dragging myself backwards and forwards across Kildare Street. Now passers by are saying I should Do Something About Myself. A picket of student nurses asking Micheál Martin to pay their fees get ready to do an immediate clinical examination but I escape. On Thursday, have to go and see an in-patient. Nursing colleagues are now pursing their lips in quite a threatening manner, (they were some of the early entries in the Do Something About Myself competition). I almost make it to the car park when I meet the research registrar who insists I should get my foot X-rayed.
Kind radiographer X-rays my foot and I feel much better, the X-rays have cured my foot because I have Done Something About Myself. I look at the X-rays and say that my foot is fine, it is all in the mind. Radiographer, who is not quite so confident about my radiology skills, mutters about the Trained Eye and says she will show the X-rays to him when he comes in the morning.
Next day, Friday, I head off to a meeting in Aberdeen. Magical effect of X-ray has worn off. That evening son phones to say the Trained Eye says I Should Not Be Walking on That Foot. Spend the rest of the weekend meeting trying to rest my foot, all delegates from Assemblies of Northern Ireland and Scotland urge me to Do Something About Myself, too.
Of course I had thought of a march fracture but I didn't want to have one. Two weeks had gone by with this dreadful pain in my foot still there. Now before any medical readers are even thinking to themselves "I always thought that woman was a fool", how many of them have neglected even more serious symptoms of their own ill health or injury?
We medics are extraordinarily casual about our own health and until recently not very much encouraged to be serious about it. When Finbarr Fitzpatrick of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association told us at a meeting that consultants on average drew their pensions for eighteen months we were stunned. We are the greatest exponents ever of do what I say and not what I do.
The appointment of Occupational Health Physicians in hospitals is a good start. But will these physicians have to chase us along corridors to get us to have such exotic examinations as our blood pressure taken, urine tested and so on? Will we continue to have consultations with colleagues at cocktail parties or in the hospital car park? The Sick Doctor Scheme badly needs to be expanded and properly resourced. We have seen what the Medical Council can and has to do when doctors who should not be practising continue to do so.
The Mental Health Bill is going through Dáil Éireann as slowly as molasses flows in January. Perhaps when (if?) it eventually gets to the Seanad I could insert a clause regarding testing the sanity of doctors in respect to their own health.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
