Programme 1 of 6
The Health of the Nation clinic returns on a mission to improve the health of the Irish. Dr Mark Hamilton and Dr Nina Byrnes travel the country with their unique mobile clinic to investigate the medical problems of the nation.
They meet a huge range of people with a variety of conditions, including everything from coeliac disease to haemochromatosis.
Highlights from this year’s series include a son–to-father kidney transplant, a 29-year-old who has a heart scare, model Alison Canavan on coping with depression and Gaelic footballer Kenneth Sweeney talks about living with Type 1 Diabetes.
In the first programme the mobile clinic is based at Mahon Point Shopping Centre in Cork. This programme features the drama of a son-to-father kidney transplant. The cameras are given access to the theatre to follow the surgeons as they perform this life-changing operation. Other patients visiting the mobile clinic in this programme include a woman with a mysterious rash and a man suffering from breathlessness.
The second programme of the series focuses on the heart, the third programme comes from Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre in Dublin and focuses on stress, anxiety and depression. The fourth programme features a broad range of illnesses, including the “modern epidemic” of diabetes. For the fifth programme the mobile clinic moves to the Parkway Shopping Centre in Limerick. As well as providing advice about a variety of medical problems this programme will also focus on cancer. In the sixth and last programme of the series the cases we see in the mobile clinic cover a wide range of illnesses that affect all ages, with particular focus on problems associated with bones and joints.
Dr Mark Hamilton is a Clinical Fellow in an A&E Department in one of Manchester’s largest hospitals. Dr Nina Byrnes is a partner in a GP practice in Dublin.