MINISTER FOR Transport Noel Dempsey may want the nation cycling to work, but a senior HSE West official appeared to beat him to it earlier this month.
A “health promotion initiative” memo sent out by the senior health board official outlined how medical staff would take their own steps to “reduce our carbon footprint” by using bicycles when visiting patients within the Galway city boundary.
The initiative would apply to primary community continuing care (PCCC) staff such as public health nurses, physios and GPs – all of whom would use substantial equipment for many house calls.
It would be voluntary initially, and the initiative would involve journeys of three miles or less, the memo stated.
However, it would be “compulsory for new staff”, except where medical certificates were produced. In six months’ time, staff under 35 would also have no choice but to take to the rothar.
The journeys would be extended to four miles in three months’ time, and PCCC staff working in other urban centres in Co Galway would fall within the plan’s remit by the end of the year, the memo said.
The proposal had the backing of the Galway City Council’s “healthy city” programme, it said.
“This initiative will reduce our carbon footprint and at the same time cut our travelling expenses in this economic downturn,” the memo stated, and would “generate a fitter, healthier staff and workplace and promote greater visibility at local level of health issues”.
Six bicycles with “secure containers for files” would be purchased initially, bicycle pumps and repair kits would also be made available, and there would be routine medical checks, such as blood pressure, for all the happy cyclists.
Interested applicants were invited to view the new bicycles, and the initiative would be submitted for an HSE Innovation Award, the memo continued.
It is understood that several PCCC staff members who received the memo took it sufficiently seriously to raise it with GPs in the local primary care practice.
“We wouldn’t be surprised at anything these days,” one remarked.
It is also understood that initial inquiries within HSE West have concluded that the memo may have been issued by a senior manager who was departing – and who felt the need to put fingers to keypad sometime in or around about April 1st.
