#The constant gardener movie year free
I agree that the principle of free and fully informed consent is the bedrock of medical ethics.
Perhaps his letter was submitted for publication before Sweden announced that, from the beginning of December, it was requiring proof of vaccination to be produced by people wishing to attend indoor functions of 100 people or more. Mr McGinnity also states that “the Swedes are completely back to normal with zero restrictions”. There have also been reports of ICU nurses in the Belfast Trust resigning due to mounting pressure on the health service. I can’t imagine how the patient, who may have been awaiting a viable transplant for months or years, must have felt. The Mater added that there were severe capacity constraints in its ICU on the day, with 50 per cent of those receiving critical care at the time severely ill Covid positive patients. Last month the Mater University Hospital in Dublin said that it had to take “the unprecedented decision to cancel a transplant surgery”, due to a shortage of beds in its Intensive Care Unit. This is particularly important in the winter months when health services are severely under pressure. However, the primary benefit of vaccines is that they greatly reduce the possibility of those who are infected becoming seriously ill and requiring hospitalisation. Peter McGinnity is correct when he states that “none of the Covid vaccines stop infection or transmission” (November 23). The protocol is saving unionists from themselves but they haven’t the wit to recognise that. Unionists need to be very careful, as their constant ‘no-no-no’ is wearing very thin in Britain and Europe. When the inevitable border poll follows, I look forward to his pious platitudes as he tries to sell the benefits of the union to those nationalists whose votes he will undoubtedly need in that event. Such actions will only galvanise the nationalist vote. So, I say to Jeffrey Donaldson, go ahead, trigger Article 16, tear up the protocol, reinstate the border, wreck the assembly and we’ll all look forward to the next election. It’s far from certain he will even get elected in Lagan Valley, never mind become First Minister. The majority here support the protocol but, apparently, it’s only democratic when it suits unionism. He does not speak for the majority and seems to forget that unionism lost its majority in Stormont, Westminster and the EU in the last elections. Sir Jeffrey seems prepared to do likewise. Paisley was prepared to wreck everything he rejected every democratic proposal, from Sunningdale to the Good Friday Agreement, simply because he didn’t emerge as top dog. With hindsight the DUP’s £400k ‘dark money’ would have been better spent on the Remain campaign.
They embarrassed Theresa May, blocked her ‘backstop’ proposal and we ended up with Boris Johnson’s empty promises and the dreaded protocol. They put all their eggs in the Brexit basket, thinking this would reinstate the border, strengthen the bond with the UK, re-establish British laws, give amnesties to security forces members and curb immigration. The DUP leadership has learned nothing since. One disconsolate Ballymena lady lamented in a radio interview: “We’re all going to end up in a 32-county Free State.” Those who had hung on his every word for decades and had followed him to Burntollet, up an Antrim hillside in the dead of night, donned the red beret of Ulster Resistance or camped out at Drumcree, felt totally betrayed. Then, after an extraordinary metamorphosis, a genteel, jovial, octogenarian emerged, laughing and cracking jokes with Martin McGuinness.
Paisley’s rantings continued for 40 years until he achieved his ultimate personal ambition by being elected First Minister. Unfortunately we had not reckoned on the siege mentality of the Protestant/unionist community and their propensity to always believe the worst possible scenario. Growing up in rural Armagh in the 1960s we were amused by the rantings of Ian Paisley, thinking his views were so extreme no-one would take him seriously.