Examining corruption in Ireland
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Is it the smell of money that’s getting at them?
This was the response of disgraced obstetrician Michael Neary when asked about the complaints of women whose lives were destroyed by his brutal operations.
The full impact of the words of this cynically evil man can best be understood by listening to the news clip (Six One News, 27 mins).
110,000 employees in the Health Service Executive struggle to provide a service for a tiny percentage of Ireland’s 4.5 million population.
40,000 EU bureaucrats operate an administration system that serves a population of 500 million
Letter in today’s Irish Examiner. It’s noteworthy that the author of this letter, one of the elite of Irish society, speaks of revolution.
My €25,000 pay hike is absurd in the circumstances
THE Bord Snip report makes interesting reading in respect of the recommendations for significant increases in out-of-pocket costs if you are a sick person attending a hospital or in need of medications.
It is particularly relevant in the context of a rise in my gross salary in May of €25,000 to €225,000 under the terms of the new contract for hospital doctors. The cost of implementation of the contract this year is reported to be €140 million.
It also seems absurd that this expenditure has been sanctioned by government and executed by Prof Brendan Drumm, CEO of the HSE, when the Government and he are witness to cuts in Crumlin Children’s Hospital and to totalitarian HSE managers in Naas who are currently forcing the most savage cuts in our public hospitals throughout the country without a care for the needs of patients or frontline staff trying to provide hospital services. While it would appear the terms of the contract must be legally fulfilled, one must question the morality of this in the context of the above facts.
Somehow I thought, given the financial crisis, a mechanism would be found by government to postpone or alter the financial terms of this contract through negotiation with consultant bodies or, if not, through Colm McCarthy’s public service report, whose terms of reference provided wriggle room for him at least to make some comment, if not recommendations, in this regard.
This thorny work, according to the report, is to be dealt with by the reconvened commission on pay for higher public servants.
I am increasingly despondent about the country’s political and health service governance. We are experiencing the worst financial crisis this country has ever seen, and yet Government, on the one hand, can allow a large increase in health expenditure on salaries for highly paid health service personnel and on the other, through its HSE arm, cut hospital and other health services to sick people. Its public service review body does not even refer to these facts, but at the same time makes recommendations to cut social welfare payments to those at the bottom of the ladder.
Is all of this not outrageous? I think we may have had attempts at kidnapping of executives in the HSE or government, or had a revolution, if this had happened in France!
Dr John Barton
Consultant Physician
Portiuncula Hospital
Ballinasloe
Co Galway
Crusading consultant John Crown writes a very strong article is yesterday’s Sunday Independent in which he calls Mary Harney a liar. He compares Harney’s lies with a murderer’s defence and Holocaust deniers.
Strong stuff but this country badly needs more people like John Crown, people who are not afraid to speak out, people who are willing to challenge the corrupt and incompetent. The article is worth reproducing in full.
John Crown also features in an excellent article in the Sunday Tribune in which he outlines his enlightened vision for the Irish health service.
All this spin is making me feel sick
HSE management is so bad, even celebrities could do a better job, writes John Crown
The official reaction of the health bureaucracy to the Sunday Independent column last week about budget cuts in Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin, Dublin, demonstrated the primacy of spin over substance in the running of the health service.
The column was written in response to the extraordinary and brazenly untrue statement by Minister for Health Mary Harney to the Dail, that ward and theatre closures, lengthening waiting lists and service deficiencies in Our Lady’s (which had incredibly lived and worked within its meagre budget in 2008) had not been caused by the savage four per cent funding cut that she and her officials had inflicted on that fine institution for 2009, but were due to it being overstaffed.
In terms of defences it ranked right up there with Sixties’ record producer and now convicted murderer, Phil Spector’s recent testimony at his trial, that his victim had taken his gun from his hand and shot herself, or perhaps with a Holocaust-denying Nazi stating that the victims of the greatest crime in history had, in fact, committed mass suicide.
The assertion that Our Lady’s Hospital is overstaffed is so utterly ludicrous that it can have only one of two explanations: wilful disinformation on her part or a woefully unacceptable level of ministerial ignorance about the reality of professional staffing levels in Crumlin and other Irish hospitals.
I will leave the reader to decide for themselves which of the two is more plausible.In my column, I drew some comparisons with Birmingham Children’s Hospital (BCH), a similarly sized institution to Crumlin, but with a substantially larger staff. BCH has 200 full-time consultants, Crumlin has 60. One of the minister’s spin doctors, Derek Cunningham, issued a masterfully spun statement on her behalf which completely avoided the cutbacks, and instead drew inappropriate comparisons between BCH and the totality of paediatric care in Ireland, ignoring the fact that in the English midlands alone, there are 12 other paediatric units.
Mr. Cunningham, please advise your minister how to spin her way out of these facts. We have five paediatric general surgeons in the Republic, Belfast has six. Scotland, with a slightly larger population than Ireland, has 22.
Please note that the UK is a low enough standard of comparison. Denver Children’s Hospital, again about the same size, has 800 consultant-level doctors. UK health administrators love Ireland; we keep them out of last place on all international medical staffing comparisons.
Another spun statement emerged that no emergency surgery was delayed in Crumlin. Well, children who need surgery to correct spinal deformity are perhaps not “emergencies”, but research in Crumlin and elsewhere shows that affected children who have surgery delayed while childhood growth is taking place have less successful outcomes than those who are treated quickly.
The Beacon Hospital in Sandyford, Dublin, officially opened by Ms Harney, is now developing a private paediatric surgery unit. So much for concentration of resources in centres of excellence.
In the same week that the Crumlin cutbacks became an issue of public concern, I was approached by yet another HSE spin doctor (and former Beacon employee) to ask if I would like to meet the senior HSE management, an invitation which had previously been extended to and accepted by Gerald Kean, the successful solicitor and star of Celebrity Bainisteoir who had made a number of thoughtful, insightful and critical public analyses about the management structures of the HSE.
Please note, my invitation, like Mr. Kean’s, came from a spin doctor. So, I have a better idea. Let’s turn the running of the health service over to celebrities altogether. We could call the programme Celebrity Dochtuir.
Paris Hilton, who once famously stated that she always wants to turn left to first class when she boards a plane, could be put in charge of co-location, and the Pussycat Dolls each made HSE regional directors.
They couldn’t do a much worse job than the current leadership structure.
Professor John Crown is a consultant oncologist
The Monageer Report marks a new low in the administration of our corrupt state.
Fine Gael TD, Alan Shatter wrote an excellent and hard hitting article on the scandal last Thursday in the Irish Independent. Here are some quotes from the article with my comments.
“It is unacceptable in a mature European parliamentary democracy that the report of an inquiry into the deaths of four people including two children murdered by one or both of their parents — and the dealings of state agencies with the family, should be censored.”
Of course Shatter is right; such behaviour would be totally unacceptable in a mature European parliamentary democracy. But in a corrupt backwater state run by ruthless and uncaring politicians it is, sadly, all too acceptable.
“Publication on Tuesday of the Monageer inquiry report with substantial factual background obliterated by black ink at the behest of the Minister for Children is the type of scandalous government conduct and cover-up expected only in totalitarian dictatorships.”
Exactly.
“State agencies and their employees should be properly accountable for the fulfillment of their statutory functions. Ministers in Government are also accountable for their supervision of such agencies and for the extent to which resources are provided to enable them to properly carry out their statutory duties.”
This is the case in real democracies but when State agencies and politicians confer upon themselves powers that border on the absolute, as has happened in Ireland, then accountability is no longer an issue. Democratic accountability will only become an issue again when the present corrupt system is completely destroyed.
“For the first time in the history of the State a report has had seven of the inquiry team’s recommendations censored and blacked out…”
“Consequently, there is no way of assessing in the future the extent to which they have been implemented…”
“It is reasonable to assume that they were censored because their publication would reveal undisclosed inadequacies in existing services and their concealment protects the Government from criticism in the future for not implementing the seven recommendations…”
“This scandalous and disreputable conduct by the Government and the ministers concerned is intolerable…”
“It seems clear from the approach taken by the Government and the relevant ministers that their priority is to protect the political reputation of Government members and to protect the professional reputation of those who made mistakes…”
“It seems this is a greater priority than to protect the future welfare of children.”
As we have seen on many occasions in the past, the protection of children and even the lives of citizens take second place when it comes to protecting the careers and interests of politicians and public servants.
TWO families who triggered the independent review of services at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Ennis are furious no one has been held accountable…The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) found it was unable to blame anyone because of a lack of clarity around local accountability and the authority to make decisions (Irish Examiner).
Once again a so called independent investigation into death within the HSE has been unable to hold anyone to account. I don’t think anybody really expected anything better. After so many other whitewash reports why would anyone think this one would be any different?
We’ve had the usual waffle from bureaucrats and politicians who have employed the usual cynical strategies to protect their backs.
A particularly nasty but common strategy is to supply the report to the victims just hours before its publication. This means they have no time to read it in detail and as we’re heading into a long weekend it will be old news by next Tuesday.
Mary Harney had promised to supply the report to the families of the victims before publication; she did so, at 11.30 on the morning of publication. It’s difficult to get more ruthlessly cynical than that.
This is in stark contrast to how the State favours the Catholic Church. The Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation into clerical sex abuse is due for publication in May or June but Archbishop Martin and others have already been given a copy of the report so that they can prepare their response to what is said to be an absolutely shocking litany of abuse (Irish Examiner).
A solicitor for one of the families involved in the Ennis hospital misdiagnosis scandal said that the report seemed to have a political agenda connected to the downgrading of hospitals.
This was put to the chief executive officer of HIQA, Dr. Tracey Cooper, on the Six One News (1st report, 4th item) yesterday, she replied:
“As an independent authority we’re established to take work independently from the rest of the system. What’s driven the findings of the investigation is that it isn’t about political agenda’s; it isn’t about territorialism of local hospitals.
It is about the fact that international evidence is very clear that patients that require emergency care, specialist care have to be treated in care by people who see sufficient volumes of patients with those types of conditions to keep their skills up to date.”
This statement could have been taken straight out of Mary Harney’s files so close is it to government (political) policy regarding the downgrading of hospitals.
The merits of this policy have been widely debated throughout the media but why is this so called independent authority that was supposed to be investigating the deaths of two patients by misdiagnosis, parroting Government policy as a justification for its conclusions?
Is HIQA independent? I don’t think so.
Copy to:
HIQA
The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) was set up only two years ago and already it has descended into the sewer in company with the Health Service Executive (HSE).
Just like the HSE, HIQA has now apparently adopted the cynical strategy of waiting for the most opportune moment to bury unfavourable reports (Irish Independent).
It became clear that HIQA had descended into the sewer of cynical strategies when they published the report into Rebecca O’Malley’s misdiagnosis on the day Bertie Ahern resigned.
Nobody knew in advance that Ahern was resigning but it’s likely that HIQA had the report ready and were waiting for the right moment.
It could have been argued that this was perhaps just a coincidence, like all the other amazing ‘coincidences’ in Irish public life but the latest report publications leave us in no doubt that HIQA has abandoned its commitment to “operate to the highest standards of corporate governance.”
The report into cancer misdiagnosis at University College Hospital Galway was published (buried) on the eve of the Budget when it was certain to go unnoticed by the media.
Another report; that of the misdiagnosis of Ann Moriarty, was published (buried) just after the budget and before the Easter Bank Holiday weekend.
Karl Henry, whose wife died of breast cancer a year ago after doctors failed to diagnose her cancer in Ennis General Hospital, said:
“It is a cheap stunt. Are we being taken for complete and utter fools?”
Unfortunately, we are being taken for complete fools. The person/s in HIQA who are responsible for publishing these reports are probably congratulating themselves on how clever they are as they head off to enjoy the long weekend.
By next week it’s likely that their betrayal of the people they claim to serve will be forgotten as they consider how best to bury the next report.
Copy to:
HIQA
On 23rd January 2008, I wrote that Mary Harney and the HSE were highly unlikely to accept any of the very generous offers made at the time by businesses and the general public to provide facilities for Cystic Fibrosis sufferers.
A spokesperson for the Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland confirmed on Liveline (Wednesday) yesterday that these ruthless and uncaring people in the HSE had indeed turned down all offers of help.
At the time CF sufferers were cynically told that the HSE didn’t want to accept portakabins and other help but rather wanted to provide long term permanent facilities.
We now learn that these facilities have been deferred for at least five years. Obviously, all the promises were nothing more than a ruthless delaying tactic until the controversy died down.
The brutal reality is that Mary Harney and the faceless HSE bureaucrats are more interested in protecting their little empires and big egos than saving the lives of very sick people.
Having completely lost confidence in Mary Harney and the HSE the CFAI have decided to take action into their own hands as the following article on the CFAI website makes clear.
Irish War Crimes
Are Human Lives The New Currency?
After years of empty and broken promises, the CFAI have lost total and utter confidence in the Department of Health, the HSE and Minister Harney and have decided to take action into their own hands.
Despite the severity of the issues and the simple request to have a Yes or No answer today by 5pm to the Question: Are the HSE/Department of Health going to honour the commitment given publicly in 2008 to fulfill the promise of having the CF Unit operational in St Vincent’s by 2010?
The only response back was a phone call at approximately 4pm to say that the Minister would not be able to deal with our communication until at least tomorrow afternoon. And at 4.40pm a generic email from Professor Drum’s office to say that they confirmed receipt of the letter.
It is obvious the contempt they are showing for young Irish people living and dying with CF, their families and loved ones. Orla Tinsley, CF Campaigner stated. It is degrading to everyone involved that they could not have the courtesy, urgency or even the efficiency to answer one simple question with one simple syllable.
National Chairperson Sean O’Kennedy, together with the National Council is not surprised by the total lack of respect for the young people with Cystic Fibrosis. We were fairly sure that the response we were going to get would be no response.
So we have already put our plans in place in case there was no reply. Over the next number of days we will be mounting a campaign both nationally and regionally to reverse the shocking and devastating decision that Minister Harney, the Department of Health, the HSE and Professor Drumm have made.
Sean added, the support from everyone, politicians on all sides of the Government, Medical Professionals, the general public and the media has been astounding and all are on board to wage a war against this injustice and Human Rights Issue.
The ultimate price of inefficiency, bureaucracy, politics, mismanagement and apathy is human lives. As Orla finished by asking Are human lives the new currency?
Further information on Cystic Fibrosis and the Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland can be found on www.cfireland.ie. A further statement from the National Council of the CFAI will be issued tomorrow morning.
ENDS
Early last year there was a major controversy, which began on Liveline, over the very poor facilities available to Cystic Fibrosis sufferers in Ireland.
CF patients are extremely vulnerable to infection and therefore need isolation units and other special care. In some countries, where the facilities/care is provided, patients can live until they are 40 or even 50. In Northern Ireland the average is about 35, in the Republic it’s early to mid 20s.
Because of the controversy and subsequent embarrassment the Government promised to take action on the matter but last Friday the HSE announced that the promised facilities were being deferred and would not now be available until 2011, at the earliest, because of lack of funds (Irish Times).
The scandal came to light after a CF sufferer, Bernadette Cooney, wrote a passionate and desperate letter to Liveline last year, begging the Government to provide even the most basic of facilities to give her and her fellow sufferers some hope, she died three weeks ago aged just 25 (Liveline, Friday).
At the time I wrote about the lack of anger displayed by Irish Independent journalist, Sam Smyth, whose daughter suffers from CF.
“The odd thing about Smyth’s interview was his complete lack of anger. He even praised Harney and Ahern for their ‘efforts’ and spoke as if he really believed the promise made by Prof. Drumm that proper facilities would be provided sometime next year. This promise has been made and broken for the last 14 years.”
It is this lack of anger, common to most Irish citizens, that allows chancers like Ahern and Harney to survive and prosper at the expense and suffering of ordinary citizens.
Thankfully, Smyth has finally realised the reality of how the vulnerable are treated in this country. He (angrily) introduced the subject on his show this morning.
“Let’s get stuck into something that’s really disgusting that this government has done and it’s something I’ve got a personal interest in and that is Cystic Fibrosis.
An absolute disgrace, this administration was shamed last year into providing €34 million that would undoubtedly save lives and clearly they’re gambling on those people who are campaigning now that they will be dead soon and therefore it’s a waste of money.
What we should do is find out the names of those people in the department, in the HSE and the hospitals who engineered this between them to get that cut done.
If you live in Newry you will live for ten to fifteen years longer than you would if you lived in Dundalk. Who are these people, who had the authority to do that?”
A panelist provided the answer.
“We know who is responsible, Mary Harney is responsible but she has tried to offload responsibility for years to the HSE.”
I’ve reproduced the email that Bernadette Cooney wrote to Liveline last year, the letter speaks for itself.
Dear Joe,
First and foremost I want to thank you so much for the coverage you have given CF patients over the last few days. Unfortunately, after years of listening to the same thing over and over again, I have absolutely no faith in the HSE or in Mary Harney and am not holding out any hope that anything will be done.
I am 24 years old and have cystic fibrosis. I am currently an inpatient in St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin for a severe chest infection. I have been here since the 2 January and there has been no significant improvement in my condition. I have been informed that my disease is progressing and I won’t be able to regain the level of health that I had 6-12 months ago.
Transplant has also been put on the agenda. I can’t put into words how absolutely devastated I am-as a CF patient you make the best of everything and try to ignore the statistics that are staring you in the face, but when it is spelled out for you it is truly awful.
Every day is a massive effort now as I struggle to fight and maintain the exhaustive regime of treatment I must undergo which involves oral, nebulised and intravenous antibiotics, physiotherapy, nutritional supplements (and possibly having a feeding tube inserted) and oxygen.
The constant stream of anger and indignation in the media must start to sound confusing to the everyday person as there is such a massive web of problems for us within the services and facilities we are offered. However I just wanted to add my piece and get it off my chest. Here are a few points that I feel are important.
En-suite rooms are NOT A LUXURY, they are a basic need.
Firstly, as has been pointed out lots of times in the last few days, going into the current mixed and cramped conditions in Vincent’s is extremely dangerous for CF patients. We are at a low with infection and are open to any bugs flying around. These bugs can spiral out of control and could kill us. That is a fact. It is not as if we are looking for some kind of luxury-we are just looking for the basic and necessary treatment for cystic fibrosis which is recognised as international best practice. We NEED isolation units with en-suites and we need them now.
Intensely depressing scenario regarding conditions.
It is hard to describe how truly soul destroying it is to be put in a ward with 5 patients who are elderly and often senile and incontinent. I make a concerted effort each day to be strong and positive and to fight my illness, but just imagine trying to maintain this frame of mind when you are stuck in your bed because of o2xygen dependency while all around people are calling out for people who aren’t there, and are regularly soiling their beds or using a bedpan, making the smell in the ward unbearable.It is so horribly depressing.
May I also point out that the ward is where the meals are served. Would you eat your dinner in a public toilet? Because that is basically what I am expected to do EVERY DAY.
Sometimes all I want is a bit of peace and quiet and maybe to curl up in a comfortable place on my own. Even this simple desire is not possible in here. Each time someone dies in your room you are forcibly confronted with the reality that someday this could be you. What did I do to deserve this? Do I not have the right to be protected from this?
Mary Harney’s private hospital “solution” and staffing levels.
Although all the coverage has been about the lack of facilities, it is important to note that the staffing levels are also dangerously inadequate. If you refer to the report on CF services in Ireland conducted by Dr. Ron Pollock this is stated quite clearly.
However whenever the issue of cystic fibrosis is raised with Mary Harney, she tells of how funding has been allocated for new staff. While some funding has been allocated and there are now two consultants in St Vincent’s, all the consultants in the world won’t be able to get me a bed when I need it if it is not available, and they can’t magic isolation units out of thin air. If the problem is to be tackled extra staff alone will not alleviate our situation.
Also Mary Harney’s idea of freeing up public beds by building private hospitals does not help CF patients at all. While it MAY mean a shorter stay in A&E, which, I might add, is a ridiculously dangerous situation, it does not address the issue of single isolated room with en-suite, which are VITAL.
I want some answers. Why is this allowed to continue? Would Mary Harney like to step into my shoes for a day? I don’t think so.
As I write this, my 6 bed room has finally quietened down, but I’m sure that I can look forward to some noise later on. Here’s hoping for a good nights sleep.
I also want to say that despite all of this mess, the CF team and the staff of St Vincent’s hospital are nothing short of amazing, and I feel so lucky to have them looking after me. I couldn’t ask for any better, each and every one of them is just fantastic.
Yours Sincerely,
Bernadette
I see the HSE is determined to hunt down any pensioners who knowingly claim free health care and put them in jail despite the mealy mouthed promises from politicians some months ago (RTE News, 5th report).
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