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THE NEW CHIEF executive of the HSE has been challenged to “change the culture” over how the organisation approaches legal cases taken by families.
Medical negligence solicitors alleged to The Journal that the HSE’s strategy on cases remains “deny and defend”, often until a “trial date is on the agenda”, leaving some vulnerable families waiting up to a decade or more for answers.
One, Diane Treanor from Dublin firm Coleman Legal, said despite the HSE apologising to 49 families affected by failures in children’s audiology services in 2018, she has found a number of legal cases stalled since.
“They reviewed the audiology services in and around Roscommon and Mayo and they fell well below the standard. A lot of our clients are children and they were greatly affected. The HSE apologised but I still have cases ongoing on my desk.
“Some of them are four years in and I’m having to motion them [to progress the cases]. These cases have dragged on. I don’t have any cases on my desk that were settled early.”
Treanor, who has also represented CervicalCheck patients, said she has been shocked at the treatment of many people who have taken cases against the HSE.
“These women who are seriously ill are being dragged down to court to fight their corner, when they shouldn’t be. It’s just an absolute disgrace with the way the culture is and that it’s allowed to stand.”
“The approach of the HSE is to deny and defend really any clinical negligence claims,” she alleged.
Bernard Gloster replaced Paul Reid as the new chief executive of the HSE last week, having previously served as the lead for child and family agency Tusla.
It is hoped that the recently passed Patient Safety Bill will help address issues surrounding the process, including through its ‘open disclosure’ mechanism when a patient has died. Former Labour Party leader Alan Kelly has called the bill “the most important piece of legislation” that he has ever worked on.
The Bill is to provide for open disclosure of completed individual patient requested reviews of their cancer screening by the HSE. Its overarching intention is to embed a culture of open disclosure in the health and social services.
But Cian O’Carroll, who represented campaigner Vicky Phelan, was critical of one element of the legislation which he said would “protect any disclosure that’s made to a patient so that it can’t be used in litigation or in the court setting”.
“If it’s not admissible, that’s bonkers as a change in the law.”
O’Carroll said, as seen in the recent nursing homes charges controversy, that the State often adopts the position of “thinking they’re entitled to act like a private company protecting their shareholders”, which the solicitor fundamentally disagrees with.
“They’re a mutual organisation, they’re like a cooperative. There’s an obligation to behave in a different way, which is a morally appropriate way. They don’t do that.”
Solicitors who spoke to The Journal noted how apologies from the HSE have become an increasingly regular feature in recent times, covering a range of cases taken by members of the public.
Last Wednesday, the HSE, along with University Hospital Limerick, delivered an apology in the High Court to Rebecca Collins, who gave birth to a stillborn baby in the hospital 16 years ago.
The apology from the health service and the maternity hospital was read in court and liability was admitted.
A month earlier, a family criticised the HSE for the “gruelling” legal battle following the 2015 hospital death of their newborn daughter.
Laoise Ó Scolaí died after her heart was accidentally pierced by a doctor, following her premature birth and that of her twin brother Cuán in the Coombe hospital at 28 weeks on 22 January 2015.
Each baby had a collapsed lung and required a procedure to relieve it which involved a drain being inserted into the baby’s chest, but an inquest in 2017 heard that the doctor who carried out the procedure was not aware of the protocols for carrying it out on a baby as small as Laoise, who weighed only 2lbs.
At last month’s sitting, the High Court heard the matter had been settled for “substantial sums”.
Her father Cóilín was scathing about the events, alleging that the family was “lied to from the moment Laoise died”.
Stuart Gilhooley, from HJ Ward Solicitors, who represented the Ó Scolaí family, pointed to reports in January when allegations emerged that the HSE and government departments had been maintaining a longstanding “legal strategy” over nursing home charges.
“We do know from the HSE’s memo a few weeks ago that there’s a policy within the space of not dealing with certain cases until they have to be dealt with, until the time was right and not to admit liability,” he said.
Gilhooley summed up the stance from the HSE as being one where, “you deal with it when you have to deal with it – or do a deal when the case is coming up and there’s a trial date”.
That certainly is my experience in that there’s reluctance to make a decision to settle a case or to admit liability.
“I think in a lot of cases, an admission of wrongdoing and an explanation of wrongdoing is so, so important to helping the healing process begin. If matters were admitted more frankly, and more openly and earlier, then that would save [the HSE] a lot of litigation, because I think some litigation is definitely taken because people want answers rather than necessarily because they want compensation.”
However, there can be legitimate reasons for why a medical negligence case may not be dealt with as quickly as might be expected, Gilhooley added.
“Sometimes the case for the plaintiff isn’t always entirely clear either and sometimes the medical reports or the actuarial reports and other extra reports that are required to determine a case’s worth, are not there.
“It’s not always the fault of the HSE that they can’t deal with a case earlier than they would like to – but I do think there’s probably a tendency to leave things longer than they need to be.”
Treanor said that families having to go through the “long, hard journey” of the legal system can also delay them accessing key medical equipment for a loved one who has suffered debilitating injuries, as they often don’t have the finances to cope.
“Early acknowledgments from the HSE would allow them to have access to equipment and seek the best possible treatments without having to go through litigation,” she said.
“Litigation is already a very daunting and distressing thing for any family.”
There are signs of improvements to aspects of how hospitals handle potential negligence cases where a patient has been left seriously or fatally injured, according to Gilhooley.
These centre around the investigations hospitals conduct in light of a serious incident.
“I do think that investigations in hospitals has improved and you will see, certainly proper investigations take place. They’re not always necessarily independent ones – as they’re carried out by the same medical team within the same hospital – but at least they are investigations that will provide some answers to what went wrong,” he said.
But it remains a “matter of culture” for Gilhooley.
“The mandatory disclosure rules are going to be very, very important. We do a voluntary disclosure situation now, where . . . after death, you have a requirement for investigation, but it’s not mandatory. That means that it can be done on the hospital’s terms.
“So I think the culture will need to change and I’m not sure a whole lot more you could do from litigation point of view.
“We do need to ensure matters are dealt with early and proper, fulsome and heartfelt apologies are made.”
When the HSE was was contacted by The Journal, the HSE said its open disclosure policy reflects the primacy of the rights of patients.
“The ethos of this policy is to ensure that the rights of all patients and staff involved in and/or affected by patient safety incidents are met and respected, that they are communicated with in an honest, open, timely, compassionate and empathetic manner and that they are treated with dignity and respect,” it said.
It added that legal cases are managed on behalf of all State authorities by the State Claims Agency.
“Communicating effectively with persons affected in a compassionate, empathic and thoughtful manner, especially when providing information about a patient safety incident, is a crucial part of the therapeutic relationship and if done well can mitigate anxiety and enhance trust in the staff, the organisation and the health care system.”
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Classic case of someone letting attention go to his head…
Just what Ireland needs – another single issue parish pump party.
@Lee King Buckett: We need something new FFG are a joke.
@G Row.: That may well be the case but I can guarantee you that a mica party is not the answer.
@G Row.: don’t know about you G Row but the more Paddy Diver speaks the the more I loathe the micra campaign. Can’t imagine many people would back a political party he is involved in.
@Roy Dowling: Driven to it in my opinion.
The trouble these days I find there are too many people see this as getting something for nothing, l don’t.
I’m sure Paddy Driver and the rest of the group would not be doing any of this if they weren’t victims in the first place.
@G Row.:
Nobody is being driven to form their own single issue political party. That’s nonsense.
This crowd know there is support for the mica issue and are looking to capitalise on it.
@G Row.: Victims of wrong doing by the manufacturer of the products who is still in business to this day and not by the taxpaying people of Ireland who they expect to repair their homes.
@Lee King Buckett:
that’s what you see, a parish pump politican that let attention go to his head.
However the thousands of people affected by mica and the tens of thousands of their family and friends see a person that cares unlike every political party that has done no more than pay a little lip service.
I’m not from donegal but my sympathy is with them, why were/are the people of donegal affected by mica being treated differently than the people of Dublin were with pyrite, who received 100% with no caveats
@Roy Dowling: Totally agree with you but imagine you were in their position.
Always the same in this country the big boys walk away and the victims are then vilified for standing up for themselves.
@Lee King Buckett: We keep hearing this party and that party are not the answer.
DO you think FFG are?
@G Row.: there is no party called FFG.
@G Row.: No definitely not but neither is a mica party.
@White Chapel: So what do you think “This crowd” should do, sit back and take it while they see the people that caused it walk away as usual.
@John Mulligan: Of course there isn’t John. Nudge nudge, wink wink.
@G Row.:
Such nonsense.. What are you even talking about? What are they going to achieve by winning a few seats in Donegal County Council or the Dail? Nothing.
Come election time, they won’t want to have their 30k or more supporters vote for someone else though. Not when they have a well established candidate in that mouthpiece Paddy Diver. He and some of the other activists could easily get elected.
As for the people that caused it? You must mean Cassidy’s Quarry? Sure they are walking away with it no matter what happens.
@White Chapel: So Cassidys quarry are walking away no matter what happens.
Is that OK with you?
If it was your house falling down what would you do?
@G Row.: They never even tried going after the manufacturer. One of there legal team literal said the haven’t bought proceedings against anyone else they are waiting to see what the government comes back with.
@G Row.: no, a simple fact.
@Roy Dowling: Can you just imagine how long it would take to get the manufacturer to cough up.
It would be the usual story of the legal lads getting rich in the background and nobody getting a house built.
@G Row.:
They are by the looks of it, seeing as there are no legal actions against them, but a full blown campaign against the state.
Where did i say that was ok for cassidys to get away with it?
Try staying on the point of the previous comments. Paddy Diver and company are basically a bunch of disaster capitalists now with their eye on the councillors & tds salaries as well as the hand out for redress compensation.
Ready to stand in line with ff, fg, sf and all the other useless articles out there in irish politics. There’s nothing between any of them
@G Row.: That’s there problem not the taxpayer of Ireland’s.
@Lee King Buckett: well it works in Kerry and for other Independents. I think if we had say fifty per cent less TDs and County councillors we would have a chance to be a functioning democracy ask yourself should your council be the biggest employer in the county jobs for the boys and girls, the old county council model needs to be abolished corrupt to the core a councillor in every village what a joke.
@Roy Dowling: I’ll back him 100%
@Joe Kelly: Nothing ‘works’ about Kerry & the Healy-Reas.
There is a political dynasty there who are multi-millionaires, pulling in salaries funded by tax payers whilst contributing nothing to the national picture.
It’s really ironic that you are disillusioned by the ‘jobs for the boys’ mentality and then go on to say that the situation in Kerry works.
It’s fairly depressing that there are people who politically aspire to be like the Healy-Reas.
I guess 500k a head of taxpayer money wasn’t enough
@Adam Rekio: did you believe everything this government said they would do at the last election.
Classic case of someone not reading the detail not the headlines.
@Peter McGlynn: *just the headlines.
As a Donegal man, this is rid iculous (had to space that word to beat the toxicity filter (8.0! Down to 4.8 at that point). The people of Donegal won’t be swayed too much by this. They might (big might) get one in but no more and it won’t panic ff fg etc (much to many anti gov people’s chagrin). This lad needs to look at himself, his performance in particular came very close to driving public sympathy away from the issue. Someone in the group needs to have a word with him for all their sakes, and for any other groups that might need to have their causes highlighted in the future. As already stated, we’ve enough single (dealt with) issue people in the dail taking up seats.
@TomTraubert: “taking up dail seats”, should they vacate them for somebody from the cartel that have been ruining the country for the last 100 years?
@Eamonn Connaghan: ‘cartel’? They were all elected.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: haha, yeah, I laughed at cartel as well. You’d swear people were going around with guns making people vote for them……
@John Mulligan: there was plenty of sympathy and plenty of people were behind them but his performance on the first day in the big smoke giving his Twitter handle out saying come and complain to me I don’t care when threatening to bring the city to a standstill turned people against him/them alright. Yes, it was probably the main reason and nobody likes a bully is right. But, something else was at play too….they wanted 100% redress and when it looked like the gov were going to listen the anti fffg mobs rounded on them too because the government were going to be wasting ‘taxpayers’ money (hate that term, it’s exchequer funding or citizens money to be correct) on the scheme. Weird reaction from the anti big bad gubbermint brigade.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: Not as a political party to run this country, they formed a pack against the wishes of the majority of voters in this country.
Any one of the three party government haven’t a mandate to run our country. ????
@Jimmy Kiely: Its called democracy. Look it up instead of spouting silliness. Perhaps you are disappointed that we are not a theocracy or kleptocracy with an authoritarian figure that you can worship.
A Donegal version of the healy-raes…
No thanks
I can’t understand how houses in Donegal that were valued by their owners at between E100,000 and E300,000 for Property Tax purposes are now valued at over E400,00. You cannot expect the rest of the country to accept the facts and pay the full cost of rebuilding if the correct amount of property tax has not been paid over the years. If you value your house at E200,000 and pay the tax on that then how come that even allowing for building inflation it is now worth double that.
Are some of the good folk of Donegal abusing the system ?
@JG: that’s one of the key issues.
Another is the whole black economy of one-off house building. Expecting redress from taxpayers where no or few taxes were paid.
@JG:
Divide Deceive Distract
Lovely bit of red herring
Thrown in Mr FFG…
@JG: I’ve an answer to that scrap the property tax. Hmm maybe I should form a political party and stand on a single issue of it would be immoral and corrupt to tax a home ! There or did Enda say that?? Or have a slogan like Paddy needs to know!! I feel an election coming on!!
@Kerry Evans: sorry I’m certainly not in any party but if you consider someone undervaluing their property for tax reasons and not adding their fair share to the pot and then upping the value of the property when it suits so as to take money from the same pot is fair play then yes it’s a red herring … on the other hand I think most people would consider it fraud.
@JG: Dead Right!! If they declared the value of their houses at say E250k for property tax reasons, let that be the maximum amount they can claim. By claiming any more than that could be fraud, Allegedly.
Wasting their time. Grand delusions of changing the system.
@Dave Johnston: maybe grand delusions of linining pockets on the back of a realization that a few thousand angry votes were the perfect ticket. Nice mileage bill from Donegal to Leinster house.. about €400 tax free per return trip I believe is how it works out.
@Dave Johnston: Agree with you Dave. Can’t believe the arro-gance of the man. They refuse to tackle the people who are responsible for all of this, pushes his demands higher and higher and refuses to negotiate, gets the politicians on their side threatening them with ‘ competition’ for their seats at next election. That works, so the Govt come up with a hastily agreed compensation package and even before he gets the money in their greedy little paws, they threaten to unseat all sitting politicians by forming their own political party. If he had kept his powder dry until they got the money, fair enough but to announce it now, guarantees he will never succeed. Especially after giving two fingers to the public taxpayer. Donegal does desparately need politicians of integrity but the Healy Raes comparison, gave me a good belly laugh. And now he wants us to fund his house and his future as a perk loaded TD. Happy New Year everyone!!!!!!!!
A political party that will only have 1 true agenda and that is there own agenda schools won’t matter social housing won’t matter the environment certainly won’t matter but if it concerns MICA and redress that’s all they’ll truly care about.
When reading the headline associating with healy Reas”. The 1st thing that came to mind was “Me Fein politics”…
Householders should only be recouped for the stated value of the Mica affected house as declared by the owners officially to Revenue in determining their annual Property Tax. Why should the rest of us taxpayers foot a bill for anything in excess of this stated value. Also householders should be refunded only to the value where they can demonstrate the manner in which they had legitimately paid for the construction costs and excluding under the counter payments.
@Irish big fellow: And that will be generous. I live in Dublin, and the valuation of my house for the property tax is well above the cost of replacement of the house, since it is the plot of land that makes up most of the cost. Land is much cheaper in Donegal, of course.
You can’t fault them . Independents hold more power now than the big political parties and it will continue with the fragmented Governments we have coming for the next 50 years
He’s making his Santa list a bit early for next year. A new house, 100% paid by the tax payer, new tennis courts, new basketball courts, a GI Joe with Kung Fu grip. Diver needs to understand here that if there is a governance and/or regulation fault then the blame for that sits squarely with Donegal Co Council. Now look at the make up of that council.
Yawn….
@M.J. O’ Neill: after that deep, thought provoking 4 letter comment, you can have a little lie down, you must be exhausted!
Unfortunately a single issue party will go nowhere. As tax payers have been left footing the bill they’ll struggle for public support. I fell bad for them but their efforts would be better off suing the materials supplier.
It will crumble at the First Hurdle
Much wants more
Diver has some neck
its a bigger issue then 1 TD, ! TD couldn’t have stopped Mica
It’s the forgotten county
@Big bad bull: killybegs had the highest standard of living in Ireland a few years back.
@John Mulligan:Killybegs has a population of 1236. Is the main fishing port for North Atlantic fleet, with a high proportion of that population employed in fisheries. So not really a demographic or living standard measuring standard for rest of county or country.
@M Bowe: I’m just pointing out that donegal isn’t the third world that these campaigners are trying to portray. Letterkenny seems to be doing pretty well, as is Bundoran. Indeed the latter has a busy venue where the card machines in the bar seem to be perpetually broken and they haven’t time to have them fixed.
Unfortunately as we don’t have a robust and proper system of local government, this is probably the best way to affect change locally. This a symptom of how broken the system is.
@Antaine Ó Cáthain:
That shows what you know about local government.
Even if they took every seat in Donegal they still couldn’t change anything.
@Antaine Ó Cáthain: Local Government has been stymied since rates were abolished.
@White Chapel: of course they could, the councillors don’t have many powers but they do set the budget and development plan. So if Paddy Diver wants more basketball courts or the local roads improved then he can request an increase in property tax to pay for it or, as he says himself, let Donegal people look after Donegal, e.g. pay for their own mica damaged houses.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: sinn fein is going to pay for everything with a tax on ‘wealth,’ they say.
So rates appear to be on the way back.
That should shift the remaining small.farmers and business owners out of rural Ireland.
@The next small thing:
Yea I’d say that’s exactly the way it will happen. Paddy Diver and the Mica gang will put up property tax (if it hasn’t already been increased by the 15% maximum already) to raise funds for the county.
He’s got a bit of recognition over the last few years of this campaign and it seems that he now wants to make the public pay him for it
I bought a new car a few weeks ago, the place i got it from went bust but so did my car, will the government pay for me to get a new car?don’t think so, jokers
@Happy: has several government agencies failed in enforcing the proper manufacturing regulations in the manufacture of your car, has citizens in another part of the country been fully reimbursed for similar faults with their vehicles?
If so then of course you are entitled to equal treatment.
@Happy: form a car party, or just join sinn fein.
Let ‘the rich’ pay for it.
“Donegal resident form-mica party”
@John Quill: vote Formica!!!
You can’t fault them . Independents hold more power now than the big political parties and it will continue with the fragmented Governments we gave coming for the next 50 years
Sounds like a separatist group for Donegal (time Donegal people started looking after Donegal)
I get it, they’ve been completely neglected since probably independence by the powers that be.
But c’mon, there’s no way this single issue party is going to take off.
how the Healy-Raes take care of Kerry. I will give them that much they do take care of who elected them, just a pity they use the simpleton act to hide how intellegent and ruthless they are. Just hides what they really are, and make you wonder, whatever public deals they get by holding the government to ransom, how many under the table deals are done?
Home rule for Donegal and home rule for Yorkshire.
Not as smart as the Healy Raes, should have played the gombeen at the start then ask for everything after cementing your seat.
It wont last long, eventually it will all fall apart.
If anything exemplified why we need to elect the Dáil on a list system or list hybrid, it’s something like this. The national parliament is there to enact laws for the good of ALL the people, not some of the people, some of the time. Its time to give more autonomy to local government and get the parish pump TF out of the Oireachtas.
What’s the green party
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