Archives in Crisis
In Saturday’s Irish Times (10/4/2010) Fintan O’Toole highlighted the dangerous state of neglect facing much of the country’s archival heritage due to the ‘chaos in public policy … and the Government’s lack of concern’. One of the areas he particularly focused on was health records.
Having congratulated the Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland for their role in using health records to illuminate the life of ordinary citizens he goes on to say that;
‘Yet, even as this field of historical writing is beginning to flower, the records on which it is based are in increasing danger. The problem is simple: there is no statutory protection for the archives of medical institutions. Local county archives have usually inherited (by custom and practice) the files of the workhouses, poor law unions and health boards. (Though not all county councils actually employ a trained archivist.) Other records, however, seem to be acquired or dumped on an almost random basis.’ [Read the full article here and a related article from Monday's Irish Times here]
The problem of lack of legislation protecting health records is one of great concern as reforms in the health service, especially in the area of mental health, are leading to the closure of many hospitals which, in some cases, have records stretching back centuries. The RCPI archives hold the records of three former Dublin hospitals; the Westmorland Lock, Sir Patrick Dun and Saint Ultan’s. Certainly in the case of Saint Ultan’s the records of the hospital, which are extremely important for the study of the development of paediatrics, were only saved because some of the doctors involved in the closure of the hospital realised the importance of the records and presented them to the College.
O’Toole’s article linked into the symposium held the same day on Archives in Crisis in Trinity College, an extremely well attended event given that it was the first sunny weekend of the year and the Grand National. The symposium raised a lot of issues facing the archive sector from the proposed merger of the National Archive, National Library and Irish Manuscripts Commission, to lack of funding and reduced access. The outcome of the symposium was the establishment of a committee to campaign for the archival sector and to raise awareness of the value of archival records and what people stand to lose if they are not properly protected.