Dian Ceacht, an eminent and much respected medical adviser in Celtic mythology, has given a diagnosis and written a prescription for a terrible affliction that has hit the Atlantic seaboard - the vacant post of general practitioner (GP) in Roundstone, Co Galway.
As reported recently in this column, the Western Health Board is engaged in its third attempt to appoint a doctor to the Connemara catchment. It has even increased the salary.
The price of property, the unsocial hours, the large distances involved in house calls, and the fact that Roundstone is largely a GMS catchment in the winter, and a sort of fashionable Atlantic resort populated by affluent Dublin-based cognoscenti in the summer are some of the deterrents cited for the lack of interest.
Dian Ceacht is puzzled by the fact that the job still hasn't been filled. A suitably qualified candidate would only need a few qualities, he writes in last week's edition of Medicine Weekly. "He or she must be sound of mind and body. If you should be so foolish as to get any illness, you will have to work, as the onus of having to get a locum rests with you alone."
The prospective applicant should be a pin-carrying member of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association. He or she should also be single. "Spouses and children can be a hindrance to the full-time care of your patients. Should you marry and have offspring, you will have the pleasure of watching them grow up at a distance," he says. The incumbent should not have any hobbies or sporting interests lest they interfere with the continuing care of patients. "Spend too much of your time fly-fishing, or on the links, at your peril," he warns. "Remember, you are a carer, and who cares about you? Certainly none of our organisations, all of whom see nothing wrong with the 168-hour week . . . " Ouch!