Aongus Collins relies on the weekly controversies in the health service for his cartoons, writes Ciarán Brennan.
When Aongus Collins was first asked to produce a series of cartoons for The Irish Times HealthSupplement, he was a little worried about finding enough material to sustain a weekly run.
He need not have worried. Luckily for him, with its rows, snarl-ups, consultants, doctors, nurses, politicians, health scares, trolleys and sacred cows, the Irish health system would provide enough material to fill a book.
Quite literally as it turned out. A selection of Collins's cartoons is now available in a book, Government Health Warning. It is a funny, incisive commentary on how our health system is managed - or mismanaged as some would argue.
Capturing the highs and lows of Irish health, the cartoons poke fun at the politics, personalities and peculiarities of the system.
"I was blessed with the timing of the cartoons," says Collins. "Not a week goes without some controversy in the health service. Computers were a godsend. Nobody could have predicted the computer foul-ups. No one could have predicted that A&E would be such a pivotal political issue and consultants are never short of a word."
The health system is also of personal interest. Collins's father was a programme manager for community care in the Southern Health Board. "I've been hearing health stories since I was a child," he says.
Collins originally worked as a journalist on a technology magazine but drew cartoons in his spare time, with his work eventually featuring in the Evening Herald, the Star and The Irish Times. His cartoons proved so popular he was able to give up his day job.
He has been a professional cartoonist and illustrator since 1986, working under both his own name and the signature "Scratch".
His cartoons are a commentary on the public's fascination with health - their own as well as the vagaries of the system. Health has captured the public imagination in a way it never did before, he says, and his cartoons reflect the fads, the diets, the therapies, the scares or what Collins calls "coffee can kill you" stories.
Although Irish people have a great sense of humour and can take a joke, the aim of the cartoons is not to offend, he says. It is more of a social commentary. "You've got to draw the line between public issues and private tragedy," he says.
So why do people find the failures and the foibles of the health system so funny? "You laugh at what you're afraid of to exorcise your ghosts and demons. You laugh at people in authority or who have power over you to overcome your nervousness. It's a safety valve," says Collins.
And what is his own view on the fascination with health topics?
"What it boils down to is everyone is looking for a cure for mortality and it's never going to come," he says. If that's the case, you might as well have a laugh.
Government Health Warning is published by Currach Press and costs €9.99.