“I love these poems. The voice overall has strength and confidence, but what matters most is its humanity. The Healing Station is a tribute to the courage and incorrigibility of the common men and women encountered by Michael McCarthy in the course of his residency. Faced with the ailments of our time – stroke, heart attack, onset of dementia – they never lose their humanity or their humour. Here’s love in the form of laughter – and its tonic. With the health workers ever on call I say to both the chronicled and chronicler: ‘Good man. Good man yourself.’” Gillian Allnut