Personal and Domestic Plumbing Perturbations

As a month it's been memorable, not in a misty-eyed, rose-tinted glasses mode though; more like a veritable mensis horriblus. It started with the Stephen's-Day thaw, one of those once-in-a-lifetime, extraordinary weather events that saw the temperature soar from a bracing minus seven to a balmy plus eight in the space of 24 hours! Our house being of the Baby Boom generation with all the attendant physical figaries of third age, was perhaps built to withstand such events while in its first flush of youth but not now in its sixties. As with all cantankerous 'auld wans, when placed under such extreme environmental pressure; our house burst a pipe. The water broke through the ceiling just left of Boy Wonder's bed and flowed unimpeded through the house until it had laid waste to three ceilings, one floor, quite a few pieces of furniture and a brand-new space ship which had recently landed courtesy of a very kind gentleman delivering goods from somewhere north of Greenland.

We were homeless but unharmed and in possession of a fully paid-up home insurance policy, it could have been a lot worse we reasoned calmly. Of course it could, I know it could, but six weeks in and still no sign of a moving-home date I have to admit to having a meltdown and to believing in my own self-indulgent, snot-fest that it couldn't possibly, ever be worse than this! I hadn't realised how much my home serves to anchor me in the chaos of the open water of life with a kid with a secondhand kidney. Well at least now I know (note to self: avoid repeat of homelessness at all costs).

As luck would have it, Rory's own plumbing, although considerably younger than that of our humble home, had its own foibles. I believe the technical term for his condition was a 'kink in the pipe'. Probably due to the meteoric rate at which he is growing, this 'kink' needed a lot of investigation and a whole heap of monitoring. The added complication of spending at least one day a week in a hospital on the other side of the country does little to aid the affliction of temporary homelessness.

In the midst of the maelstrom created by staunching the flow in some pipes, while trying to increase the output of others, the HSE saw fit to cancel Boy Wonder's medical card. A mere slip of the pen almost put paid the very costly supply of anti-rejection drugs. As is usual with all things HSE-esque, it took a small non-renewable forest of paperwork, coupled with the intersession of saints, scholars and, I dare say, a near-schizophrenic mother to get it back.

I have greeted the recent arrival of spring with a sense of exhaustion so pervasive that I have been unable to think never mind blog. I'm hoping the stretch in the evenings will loosen the logjam in my brain and allow some light to flow again.

Cheers,

Ann

Subordinated Debt

It's the phrase on the lips of every eejit who's trying to look clever. Personally I think the term was invented in a board room somewhere south of Hades, to be used as a tool to bludgeon the general population into a pulp. I have to admit it's pretty effective, since only fifteen hundred people turned up to protest in Dublin last week at the extent of the country's economic hangover.

Being a simpleton with a less than competent grasp on the state on my own overdraft never mind the national debt, I resorted to my old friend Google. So here goes a bluffer's guide to Subordinated Debt :

• In finance, subordinated debt (also known as subordinated loan, subordinated bond, subordinated debenture or junior debt) is debt which ranks after other debts should a company fall into receivership or be closed.
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subordinated_debt

• Term covering hybrid core capital and subordinated loan capital. Only losses exceeding the shareholders' equity are covered.
  www.nationalirishbank.ie/en-ie/About-National-Irish-Bank/Bank-in-brief/the-crisis/Pages/Dictionary.aspx

• Debt that carries a lower-priority claim on issuer's income or assets than that of other (senior) debt.
  www.freddiemac.com/smm/s_z.htm

There were many more - Google it for yourself, it makes for interesting reading. It occurred to me that children's health services will become the subordinated debt of our solution to the mess in which we find ourselves.

So if I understand this correctly, (which lets face it, in my case is a big 'if') the economic unit on which our future depends is currently being subordinated in favour of the senior units who screwed the whole thing up in the first place.

Permit me an analogy here: a child like our Boy Wonder requires expensive medical treatment to keep him alive, this treatment is attractive to senior medical units because it shows the tangible result of extending the life of that child thus reducing the national child mortality rate, which reflects well internationally on the country as a whole. The effort vs reward equation stacks up well in the short term and saving his life is rightly seen as a senior debt.

Once the danger has passed, the child then slides down to become the subordinated debt of the local primary care authority. In the eyes of the primary care bosses, the child will neither exert enough pressure nor bring sufficient reward to warrant being considered as a senior debt. As a subordinated debt, there is no incentive to provide specialist intervention to allow the child to reach their developmental targets.

When the child ends up in a classroom requiring a special needs assistant or specialist equipment, they can migrate to being a senior debt liability again but the debt has now passed to the education department. The education mandarins will in turn strive to reduce their level of debt on this child by redefining the terms of their liability. Simply put, they will change the terms of the child's entitlement. This change in the terms of entitlement will result in creative reporting from the 'ologists in primary care to meet these new terms and ensure they can off-load the child from their debt portfolio. And so the debt shifts back and forth changing status with each department.

What we all know about debt is that we tend to prioritize our repayments in favour of those yielding the biggest baseball bats should we refuse to pay. Currently the ones holding those lumps of lumber, are unidentified bond holders; nameless, faceless entities beating our children out of the way while they charge to the top of the queue.

This is what comes of living in an economy instead of a society.

Cheers,

Ann

A Boy's Right to Shoes

Hi All,

Sorry for the silence - life has been busy lately what with managing milestones and contemplating military strikes on local HSE positions! As you know we've been running the gauntlet of assessment appointments for Rory's Assessment of Need. Further to this, I have now assessed that the one thing he really needs, is a full time appointment secretary.

So far, we've had his Physiotherapy needs assessed, and guess what? He needs Physio. Then we had part one of his Occupational Therapy assessment, and what a coincidence? - he needs that too! We also had the pleasure of meeting the local Psychologist and wouldn't you know it - he could do with a little support here also. The whole painful process has, at least, helpfully pointed out, that not only will I have to battle for Speech Therapy, but I'll also have a whole range of urgent needs but non existent services to look forward to in the future. Oh be still my beating heart!!

However, my own personal favourite recent encounter was with our local neighbourhood friendly Podiatrist - the person who fits kids with those really attractive corrective shoes. You all know the ones - usually navy, with sensible lace up fronts which just scream "Bully me I'm handicapped". Fortunately, I am very happy to report that they are much smarter these days and don't have that same "use me as target practice" aura.

I'd been waiting for an appointment since last summer - a mere blink of an eye in HSE waiting terms, I know, but 8 months in the life of the fallen arches of a 4 year old represents a large percentage of their life time walking on this earth. We skipped eagerly to our meeting, to be told, what we had already suspected, that yes, indeed Rory did need special shoes. Great, now it's official, where do I sign the form? Well here's the rub. It's not that simple - if it was, then unthinkable things could happen - like everyone who needs a pair might actually get them - and how would we deal with such wanton efficiency?

The very nice Podiatrist inquired if we had a medical card, I gleefully confirmed that we had. She helpfully advised that I get the shoes under the medical card scheme as they were prohibitively expensive. I naively concluded that since we had already qualified for the card and she herself had given her professional opinion of my child's need, then where's the problem? Eh, well no, you see it doesn't work like that. Sometimes the HSE doesn't always sanction them. At this stage, the old familiar temple throb was beginning to make me twitch but, I realised, that in her capacity as the mere messenger, she was clearly not the person to shoot! So I politely inquired how I would know there was a problem - of a HSE sanctioning nature so to speak. I was told that if I didn't get a letter telling me to attend the next clinic in a months' time, then I could reasonably assume that there was indeed a non sanction issue at play. I left in more of a whimper than a temper.

Then logic - the old Nemesis of all things HSE related, kicked in. I thought I'd rather just cough up whatever it costs to get the shoes now, rather than wait for another month on top of the 8 I had already waited, to be told no, and then have to pay for them anyway. So I made a few calls. I eventually happened on the right person to speak to in such situations. She was extremely efficient and understanding - clearly she couldn't have been working with the HSE too long! She would ring her boss on my behalf and get straight back to me, and she did exactly what she promised. Minutes later I was greeted with the breezy sound of her, keen as mustard, tones when she cheerily advised me to" fire ahead with the application as they were flush this month"! In my stunned state I could only wonder if I had phoned her a month earlier, would the news have been less positive? Oh yes, she agreed, it was a disgrace, but that's the way it works - in the leaner months of the HSE fiscal calendar, kids who need orthotics or special shoes go without, if that particular department is, to use their own parlance, less than flush!

Such exacting budgetary management is to be lauded - I am so glad that the best budgeting brains in the country are making sure that no kid gets expensive shoes at taxpayers' expense, without its parents first being brought to their knees!

And lets remember now folks, that there is still a little boy who got a kidney from his Dad 4 months ago who can't eat, and who still wobbles when he runs because of his fallen arches!

Cheers,
Ann