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My friends aunt was up from the South, needed to see a doctor, paid £75 quid to see one in a private clinic in Armagh ran by an ex Tyrones missus, the doctor she saw is the doctor I would see if I ever got an appointment!

That Doctor is in all likelihood taking those shifts because his or her practice can not give them any more shifts. Not the fault of the GP but the system.

[Before COVID you could ring the GP surgery and get an appointment the same day, Why are GP's not back to seeing patients, is everything just been sent to the A&E departments. What are they actually doing?]

The school rang my wife yesterday about our 12 yr old son who was saying he didnt feel well and said his chest was sore. Teacher said his heart rate was pretty fast. He hadn't been running about or anything. Long story short he was lifted from school and the wife thought she would call into the GP Surgery in our small town. She said the car park to the surgery was empty (this was around 2pm) and when she went to the reception she could see they waiting room was empty and they told her that there were no free appointments available and to ring this number.

She rang the number and explained what was going on and was told to be at Craigavon for 6pm.
Went up and got a ECG done which showed nothing out of the ordinary and said that it might be best to get a chest xray and sent her over to the A&E department.
My wife said it was crazy, the place was packed with only standing room and she just came home as she would probably be still waiting.

Before COVID you could ring the GP surgery and get an appointment the same day, Why are GP's not back to seeing patients, is everything just been sent to the A&E departments. What are they actually doing?

We are not ones who run every time to the doctors if one of us has have a sniffle and the last time I was we were at a hospital was when our last was born which was 8 years ago.

Surly this can go on like this as staff at the hospitals couldnt work under them conditions.

Sorry for the long post.
 

Few points on this.
No you generally could not see a GP the same day before COVID. Routine appointments were handed out a month in advance. Slots would be reserved for emergency stuff on the day but for the most part, you had to wait a few weeks at least.

In fact, more people are seen "on the day" than ever before. The move to a day to day triage service has ensured that calls can be triaged and redirected to the appropriate person (GP, pharmacist, a&e, etc).
There are more consultations per day now than before COVID, and that's with less staff. To the point where safety concerns have very raised by the BMA.

There are a few reasons why surgeries are ridiculously busy at the minute. A shortage of doctors like I said, but as well as that the amount of people on waiting lists for secondary care is growing, leaving these people essentially going to their GP to treat symptoms whilst they wait for expert assessment. An aging population and increased rates of obesity, T2DM etc also contribute.

This is correct, ad to that the amount of money GP practices receive to provide services has not increased in a long time meaning that all staff wage increases and the normal cost of living increases have been taken out of the GP's pocket so it is becoming harder to retain GP's.

Another example of Tyrone being refereed differently again. How can one be a yellow card and the other black?

Did you see the whole incident or just what we seen on the telly?

To be fair the BBC could not find why there was 1 black and 1 yellow appeared bizzarre, a big call that impacted on the game. Do you know why?

I only seen what the telly showed, as did most? My thinking is the the Tyrone man pulled him to the ground and what we seen was the grabbing each about on TV

Is that a black card?

That Tyrone team have better fire power than most Ulster team, it'll be an interesting game. I hate to say it but the sons of God are a joy to watch.

Another example of Tyrone being refereed differently again. How can one be a yellow card and the other black?

Did you see the whole incident or just what we seen on the telly?

To be fair the BBC could not find why there was 1 black and 1 yellow appeared bizzarre, a big call that impacted on the game. Do you know why?

Can't find My Way Home (Blind Faith)
Wonderful Tonight
Lay Down Sally

Same: Tears in Heaven, Wonderful Tonite... I like 'Why Aye Man'.. was tune for TV series Auf Wiedesen Pet (proby misspelt!) Really caught the migration to get work from Tyneside (same as Ireland)... 'economic refugees' and the carnage caused by Thatcher..
We had no way of staying afloat
We had to leave on the ferry boat
Economic refugees
On the run to Germany
We had the back of Maggie's hand
Times were tough in Geordie land...

Was that not Mark Knoffler?

Armagh need to beat Down first and that is never guaranteed especially with our track record for self harm. I don't think if we can get over them that we are good enough to beat either Derry or Donegal.

When you see how the Dubs use dominance as they did against Meath chipping over points, you'd be right to worry for Armagh. For all the good forward they possess they do not score enough even against light weights.

Neil Young like Dylan has written so many good tunes, hard to pigeonhole him in a genre, he was grunging long before Grunge, his country stuff is awesome as well. Not a classic guitarist he none the less knows how to get it done. Check out Cortez the killer great guitar intro and a telling commentary on the invasion of the Americas by Europeans.

Ready for another?

Suggestions welcome

Neil Young
Like a Hurricane
Cortez the killer
Harvest

Scheffler and Bhatia will be there or there abouts.

Sure the lucks been hanging out of the penalty Kick Champs (X2), why change anything? just go full of the bull until it goes pear shaped and then think about it.

Any examples of when other Ulster teams didn't go all out to win Ulster and as a direct result they won an AI?

In the second year if the current competition?

Tyrone had a fair degree of ambivalence to the USFC in noughties. But I'm sure that's the response you were waiting for to refute it.

Harte and the players?

"A couple of years we were of the mindset that we were going to win the All-Ireland and were beaten in the first round. It didn't do us any harm. We went on to win it from there twice."

https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/sport/gaa/gaelic-football/tyrone-legend-sean-cavanagh-issues-28938977#google_vignette


A quote from Sean Cavanagh today funny enough.

Cavanagh is becoming the new Joe Brolly.

Celtic will not have lost this league because of Old Firm results. If they lose it it will be because they did not have replacements for key players like CCV, Rio and to a lesser extent McGregor. That's on the board/recruitment director.

I think the late Late missed a trick here. I don't know why Marty was freezing his bollocks of in Longford. There should have been a greater celebration of Clubs, a nod to John  McKillop would have been nice. I am also sick of the sight of Staunton and Jacob, surely there are better female role models out there? I saw Michael Dara in a new light, Brolly was mildly entertaining in a boring uncle sort of way. Perhaps a longer show?