DESPITE the male domination of politics and the medical profession, author Dr Ian Banks believes that men's health is very low on the political and medical agenda. To him it's as if there's a conspiracy wherein men are seen as a disposable commodity: "There's an enormous anomaly between male and female, health. I think there is a conspiracy against men, led by parliament in the UK and by the medical profession."
He stresses the following statistics: a recent MORI poll in Britain found that eight out of 10 men admitted waiting too long before going to see their doctor; men also come off worse than women for almost every health condition - "we even get breast cancer"; men die on average five or six years younger than women; car accidents kill more than four times as many men as women. The number of men who take their own lives is also four times greater than the number of female suicides. Men don't readily seek support in their concerns or insecurities which loads them to isolation and depression. Most sexually transmitted diseases are higher among men than women; as many as one in eight admissions to hospital casualty departments is alcohol related and most of the patients male.
Drug addiction among men is also doubling every 10 years. One in three men dies from heart attack or stroke. Four times as many men die from prostate cancer as the number of women who die from cervical cancer; men die every year from testicular cancer, almost none of whom needed to die had they acted in time; and, although more women than men get melanoma, it nonetheless kills more men than women.
Dr Banks believes that the medical profession takes the view that "you don't need to look alter men too much". He is also critical of the "cynical way we bring men up: rather dead at 16 than a cripple at 85 - the James Dean type".
He cites the practice during the second World War of putting young unmarried men flying relatively cheap fighter planes while older, married men flew more expensive bombers were better protected and had a big her survival rate. Then, as now, he suggests, young men seemed expendable.
He is glad that in recent years there has been an increase in men's health awareness through conferences, new magazines such as Men's Health and the BBC's Men's Health, Season. Dr Banks believes that enhanced men's health awareness is having an effect, citing the decrease of cigarette smoking among men: "It's not a dead thing. We don't have to give up on men's health."
Dr Banks is 47, overweight ("getting on the heavy side"), balding, has "bad eyes and ears that don't work too well; everything you don't aspire to do". He has been known to down a vodka and orange in the early afternoon. He readily admits he's no role model which probably explains his remarkable success as a writer and broadcaster.
A columnist for Men's Health magazine, the Belfast Telegraph and the Irish Medical Times, his television and radio work includes The Trouble With Men (BBC, 1996), The Pulse (Channel 4, 1995), The Good Sex Guide Late (ITV Carlton, 1996) and Ask Dr Ian (Radio Ulster).
He wrote The Trouble With Men (accompanying the BBC series), Get Fit With Brittas (BBC 1997) and his new book, Ask Dr Ian About Men's Health, will be published by Blackstaff Press next month, a tremendously readable book written with humour and astute understanding for his market.
A casualty doctor, GP and council member of the BMA, Dr Banks chairs the Men's Health Forum in association with the Royal College of Nurses, a forum for men's health issues which includes representatives from bodies such as the TUC, the CBI and all the royal colleges. (Perhaps a similar body in the Republic is long overdue.)
He says "Ireland doesn't have the best track record" in men's health and believes there should be greater crossBorder collaboration in the field: "Health and disease has no respect for political boundaries". He believes environmental and industrial health concerns need attention and cites as a centre for excellence Dupont in Derry which has a men's health clinic within the company.
A former TV engineer, he says he "may not be able to cure you but I can do wonders for your vertical hold". Educated at the same school as two of the Beatles, he somehow came to Northern Ireland where he taught in a Catholic, girls grammar school before becoming a doctor. Describing himself as a "born again practising atheist", he used to "get on the absolute best" with the principal who was a nun. He has four young children, two of each. He delivered one of them, did the episiotomy and repair and was decidedly pleased with his "best stitching".
He lives on a farm near Ballynahinch in Co Down and keeps some chickens and a horse: "We give chickens" Zimmer frames rather than killing them. I'm proud of the kids. They're vegetarian. I'd avidly tuck into any dead animal."
How did he develop his interest in men's health? "I am a man. I have a vested interest. We draw the short straw." He believes that working patterns are affecting men's health and that greater attention needs to be given to work environments and regimes. The two peaks for suicide, 18-25 years and 60-65 years, are being joined by a third peak emerging at 45 years. He asks: "Why are men topping themselves at 45?" In part, he answers his own question saying that men have to get out of the macho mode.
Dr Banks admits to being "a frustrated journalist who is concerned by the poor communication between male doctors and their male patients. He suggests doctors collude against doing rectal examinations. If a man goes in with a sore nose, it would be a brave doctor who would say: "Drop your trousers and I'll check your goolies while you're here." He believes it would raise less of an eyebrow were the same doctor to suggest a breast screening examination for a woman patient. Given men's natural reticence to have themselves examined, neither doctor nor patient seem willing to take the initiative to redress the horrendous statistics showing the dire state of men's health.