Welcome,
My name is Anthony Staines, and I am a candidate for Seanad Éireann on the Trinity panel. My day job is working as the Chair of Health Systems in the School of Nursing & Human Sciences in DCU. By trade I am an epidemiologist – someone who studies how people stay healthy, how to organize health care, and why people get sick.
I did my medical degree in Trinity, where I graduated in 1984. I started training as a paediatrician – that is a children’s doctor. I trained in the old Adelaide hospital in Peter Street, Drogheda, Crumlin Children’s Hospital and the Coombe. After doing an MSc in London, I did a PhD in epidemiology, and trained in public health in Leeds.
I have worked in DCU since 2007. From 1997 to 2007 I worked in the medical school in UCD, and before that in London, and Leeds.
I now work in several different areas of Public Health, including child health, and health informatics. I have recently been seconded to HSE to work on an information and computing strategy for the Irish health services. I comment regularly on the Irish health system.
A lot of my time has been spent working on public policy. I have also worked with many different community groups, helping them to respond to plans for major developments, including waste disposal sites, airport runways, and power lines. Most recently I have been working for a Yes vote in the recent referendum on marriage equality.
I also serve, pro bono, on four boards, with support from DCU, – three state boards, the IBTS, which I chair, the Higher Education Authority, and the Health Insurance Authority, and the board of a small NGO, Quality Matters, a social enterprise start-up working on quality improvement in social care.