News
Young gays at greater risk of suicide
Young gay people are four times more at risk of suicide than straight youths and in the LGBT community in Galway City alone five people have taken their lives in the past three years.
The shocking figures prompted Amach, the support group for the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transexual (LGBT) community, to organise a meeting to discuss the range of supports and services available in the maldron Hotel last weekend.
They also hope to formulate a plan to try and prevent deaths, explains chairperson of Amach, Nuala Ward.
“Nationally suicide is a huge concern for everyone regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity but in particular for the LGBT community it has become a particularly devastating issue,” she stated.
“Our hearts have too many times been broken by the loss of friends to suicide. Over the last few years particularly, the problem seems to have escalated and caught us all off guard.
“In our own community here, we’ve lost at least five people in the last three, maybe four years and they’re not teenagers, they were people who were out.”
Amach recently organised an intergenerational creative writing project and what clearly emerged from that was the massive difference in experiences for older and younger community members.
“For older LGBT people, there can be alcohol abuse, major mental health issues, they feel very isolated in an already isolated rural setting. We have facilitated groups around the county for older people called Silver Rainbows but if we have it in a local hotel they worry about being seen.”
The workshop was given by the suicide bereavement group, Console, and the HSE suicide prevention officer Mary O’Sullivan.
“This is one of the issues that kept coming up in the interagency group, it’s one of the things we want to address and start a conversation with the community about, to figure out what steps we need to take to prevent this happening,” explained Nuala.
“We want to come up with some kind of a plan that we can roll out for the resource centre as soon as the doors open.”
Amach has received funding of €25,000 from Galway City Council and €45,000 over three years from the St Vincent De Paul’s Maureen O’Connell Fund towards establishing the resource centre. The latter prompted an outburst from the Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan, who threatened to withdraw the Church’s support for the charity in light of the donation.
The support group estimates it needs to raise a further €35,000 to open the centre on a volunteer-basis.
They have earmarked five premises where a centre could work. One of the biggest logistical concerns is accessibility so that people feel comfortable dropping in even if they are still ‘in the closet’.
“There’s an 85% chance we’ll be open by the summer. We will get it open and build on that with a view to having it open more often. A community development support worker is vital to get it organised and develop our long-term aim of becoming self-sufficient rather than running it 24/7 on a voluntary basis.”
Contact info@amachlgbt.com
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
