Microsoft sponsors confidential helpline for suicidal users



He gave the little that he had
To build a house for fools and mad;
And shew’d by one satiric touch
No nation needed it so much.

-- Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

"As Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, Swift's desire to improve conditions for the oppressed, the poor and the alienated grew. These concerns became the blueprint for a dedicated psychiatric hospital free of the abuses of the institutions at the time with an independent board of governors which would protect patients and safeguard the hospital's ongoing development and improvement.

"On October the 19th 1745 the venerable and sick Dean died, leaving his entire estate, derived from royalties of his writings including his great satirical work, Gulliver's Travels, for the founding of a hospital for the psychiatrically ill, the first in Ireland ..... It is now the oldest, purpose built psychiatric hospital continuously functioning on its original site in these islands and one of the oldest in the world. "

Ref: St. Patrick's Hospital - Swift's Lasting Legacy.

Swift himself "lapsed into dementia" three years before his death. He was wrongly thought to suffer from mental illness in his lifetime, having suffered from the early age of 23 what is now known to be Meniere's Disease, "a disturbance of the inner ear that causes vertigo and nausea. There was no treatment for it in Swift's lifetime and his fortitude must have been extraordinary."

Ref: Jonathan Swift (Hertford College.)
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According the Herald's Simon Moribund, "Microsoft founder Bill Gates should follow Dean Swift's example and donate some of his billions to help those afflicted with chronic and acute melancholia caused to computer users by his products."

Simon is temporarily indisposed. We can reveal that Microsoft has already sponsored a garden for the suicidal (above).
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If you are feeling suicidal [maybe you could] contact The Samaritans. [Not a bad idea, Feargal. I'll make a note of that. Ed.] You can talk confidentially to them on the phone.

Feargal Mooney