Health board

The Arts in Healthcare: Why and For Whose Benefit? is a question-and- answer style debate in the Science Gallery, Pearse Street, Dublin on Thursday at 6.30pm.

The panellists include Prof Desmond O’Neill, consultant in geriatric and stroke medicine and chairman of the National Centre for Arts and Health, Tallaght Hospital; Mary Grehan, arts director of Waterford Healing Arts Trust; Kevin Shanahan, musician with MusicAlive and arts and mental health co-ordinator, West Cork Mental Health Services; and Dr Jacky Jones, columnist in HEALTHplus, The Irish Times, and health promotion consultant.

Admission is free but advance online booking advised on sciencegallery.com

A public talk on meditation goes ahead in Wynn’s Hotel, Lower Abbey Street, Dublin on Friday at 7.30pm. Scotland-based Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche will talk about how meditation can help people develop peace of mind and bring joy, compassion, tolerance and forgiveness into daily life.

Advance booking advised on tel: 01-4537427 or info@ buddhism.ie

Edible mushrooms for beginners is a foraging and identification course around Gortbrack Organic Farm near Tralee, Co Kerry on Saturday from 10am-4pm. Cost €45. Another course on cultivating gourmet and medicinal mushrooms will be held in the same venue on October 20th and 21st. More details on tel: 066-7137042. See gortbrackorganicfarm.com

The UK-based Guillain-Barre Syndrome Support Group has a new freephone helpline number for callers from the Republic of Ireland. The number is 1800-606152. Information is also available on gbs.org.ukor support@gbs.org.uk

The theme this week in The Irish Times/Pfizer Healthy Town initiative is “Get Moving”. Events in Kilkenny include: a talk by physiotherapist Aidan Woods on exercising safely which takes place this evening and a talk from the Irish Heart Foundation, Keeping Your Heart Healthy, tomorrow. Other activities have been organised around walking, swimming, cycling and running or jogging.

For more details see:

[ irishtimes.com/healthytowns ]