Editor,
Few doctors working in Northern Ireland will be surprised by the findings of McGarry K et al1 that 20 years after the IRA and UVF/ UDA ‘ceasefires’ in 1994 there were MORE patients admitted to the RVH after paramilitary shootings and beatings than before the ‘ceasefires’.
The accompanying paper by Napier et al2 noted that since the ‘ceasefires’ across Northern Ireland there have been 3691 patients requiring orthopaedic expertise after loyalist and republican attacks. Truly an Irish ceasefire!
My only criticism of these most valuable papers is in their use of the term ‘punishment attacks’. This shameful but all too often used term trivialises, sanitises and in essence colludes with what are unjustified, vicious and occasionally murderous crimes.
Shockingly- but not surprisingly- 500 victims were under 18 years old, with some just 12. This is, of course, child abuse.
I can’t conceive of any other society where the victims of child abuse would have their abuse described as ‘punishment’!
Orwell3 said: ‘political language makes murder respectable and lies sound truthful’.
Doctors must be careful not to fall for the euphemisms and mistruths of propagandists.
Footnotes
UMJ is an open access publication of the Ulster Medical Society (http://www.ums.ac.uk).
REFERENCES
- 1.Kevin McGarry, Duncan Redmill, Mark Edwards, Aoife Byrne, Aaron Brady, Mark Taylor. Punishment Attacks in Post-Ceasefire Northern Ireland: An Emergency Department Perspective. Ulster Med J. 2017;86((2)):90–93. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 2.Napier Richard J, Gallagher Brendan J, Wilson Darrin S. An Imperfect Peace: Trends In Paramilitary Related Violence 20 Years After The Northern Ireland Ceasefires. Ulster Med J. 2017;86((2)):99–102. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 3.George Orwell. Politics and the English Language. 1946.