Department of Health built secret dossiers on children with autism

spaceHopper

https://www.rte.ie/news/investigations-unit/2021/0324/1205962-department-of-health-dossiers-children-autism/

This beggars belief that they think this is OK.

Family take high court action to force Government to provide care for Autistic children. Get some care so pause the case.

Government builds a cross department detailed dossier on child and family so that they can use it against the family should they restart the case. Using medical and psychiatric profile to pick best time to approach them to settle the case, aka when they are under the most personal pressure throw them a bone.

I read the article this morning. Shocking stuff.

techdiver

They do love putting as much resources into "burying" families with such issues as opposed to helping them. Disgraceful stuff!

Always the case with special needs or mental health in Ireland. Lip service and no more. Look at the length people have to go to to secure school places for children with ASD in this country! It's a joke.

BanditLuke

Despicable but not surprising tbh when you look at how successive governments have treated children/families and especially those with be it mental or physical disabilities

Treppen

Wow that's a new low.

Scraping all that data unknowingly is scumbag behaviour.

Things like this really undermine the patient client trust, you think you are talking to a psychiatrist in private but then they could be potentially sharing everything you say to be used against you in a court!!! WOW!!!

In one instance, evidence suggests that a detailed report was sent to the department following a psychiatric consultation with a child.

Department just shrug their shoulders... naa nothing wrong with that we do it all the time, so what?

However, in a statement, the Department of Health said the information sharing discovered by RTÉ Investigates with respect to the special education needs proceedings was "normal practice" in circumstances where different State bodies shared information when they were involved in litigation together.

It said it had commissioned an expert senior counsel to review the practice and that nothing arising from that review caused it to change its approach.

The department said that, under data protection legislation, it was entitled to share and store information for the purposes of getting legal advice or to defend court proceedings.

even taking a kid's school report !!!

...as a teacher , I am being told nearly every day to be careful with our data, and we can't do x or y because of GDPR (and rightly so sometimes)... meanwhile the people wagging their fingers are poaching documents from us while our backs are turned. The documents that are supposed to be in the interests of promoting the child's education is being used against the same child in legal cases.

suicide_circus

So what do we think the consequences will be for the staff in the DOH and the HSE who engaged in this behaviour?

James Brown

suicide_circus wrote: »

So what do we think the consequences will be for the staff in the DOH and the HSE who engaged in this behaviour?

Would it not be more who authorised it and/or gave the instruction to do so?

suicide_circus

James Brown wrote: »

Would it not be more who authorised it and/or gave the instruction to do so?

Yes them too

from that article:

The person who made the protected disclosure has been reminded about his conduct and his duty as a civil servant to respect confidential matters.

So I guess the whistleblower can expect to have a bogus child abuse case opened against them now :rolleyes:

suicide_circus

Snitches get stitched up

rafatoni

spaceHopper wrote: »

https://www.rte.ie/news/investigations-unit/2021/0324/1205962-department-of-health-dossiers-children-autism/

This beggars belief that they think this is OK.

Family take high court action to force Government to provide care for Autistic children. Get some care so pause the case.

Government builds a cross department detailed dossier on child and family so that they can use it against the family should they restart the case. Using medical and psychiatric profile to pick best time to approach them to settle the case, aka when they are under the most personal pressure throw them a bone.

Oh Dear, disgusting behaviour but is it any surprise this is done on Fine Gael and Fianna Fails watch. They are as low as a snake belly that lot.

spaceHopper

It's not just that they spied on vulnerable children but they also collected information related to any legal case on their parents, brothers and sisters. Much of which would be outside the scope of any case they would have to defen.

I'd love to know what barristers told them this was OK and legal. I notice it wasn't the AG.

If they've done this what else have they done?

This is also very chilling

In a statement to RTÉ Investigates, the department said that, whenever a civil servant discloses information without authorisation, both that person and the party that receives it could be guilty of an offence under the Official Secrets Act.

The person who made the protected disclosure has been reminded about his conduct and his duty as a civil servant to respect confidential matters.

For Forks Sake

rafatoni wrote: »

Oh Dear, disgusting behaviour but is it any surprise this is done on Fine Gael and Fianna Fails watch. They are as low as a snake belly that lot.

It's civil servants at work.

The information was shared and gathered with the goal of aiding the Department of Health with a background legal strategy, such as in determining when it would be a good time to approach parents to settle or withdraw their case.

blanch152

Aegir wrote: »

from that article:



So I guess the whistleblower can expect to have a bogus child abuse case opened against them now :rolleyes:

That is probably the most concerning issue in the case. A whistleblower should not be punished for whistleblowing. The difficulty for him would be if he shared some of the personal information about individuals with journalists. Sharing a policy document or a document with personal information blacked out would be fine, but a whistleblower may not be exempt from GDPR reprecussions. Was the warning appropriate in such circumstances. Did someone say to him, go ahead and whistleblow if you want, but be careful about sharing personal information. If so, no issue, if not, what exactly was said?


On the main issue, this is a difficult one. One the one hand, legal action has been taken against the State, and the State should have the right to gather all relevant information for its defence of the action. There is a duty to protect the taxpayer. On the other hand, doctor/patient confidentiality is sacrosant, and if there are any examples of where the State interfered with this, there should be consequences for those that authorised that.

Where it gets murky is in the realm of the State using the information it gathered legitimately to put pressure at opportune points on the plaintiff. Is that a case of the State acting legitimately in defence of a court case, or is it bad practice. I haven't seen enough information to understand that.

I know that the sensible examination of this that I have outlined won't go far with the mob that believes FF/FG/State wrong and everyone else right, but the details we have so far are not sufficient to make a judgement call.

Ministers change every couple of years, Mandarins don't.

James Brown

We know they were wrong to collect and retain the information.

I suppose we could argue they 'meant well' or what is 'confidential' really? But they still did what they did.
I'd like the people who orchestrated it held to account.

The Black Oil

The grubbiness of the apparatus of the Irish State never fails to surprise me. Defensive, protect the institution at all costs.

spaceHopper

James Brown wrote: »

We know they were wrong to collect and retain the information.

I suppose we could argue they 'meant well' or what is 'confidential' really? But they still did what they did.
I'd like the people who orchestrated it held to account.

They over reached they collected information on the whole family. If I took a case against the state they could ask for medical reports that are relevant but in this case they just took all the records, not reports.

FromADistance

suicide_circus wrote: »

So what do we think the consequences will be for the staff in the DOH and the HSE who engaged in this behaviour?

A promotion.

TheValeyard

Definitely going to be watching this later on tonight.

Treppen

TheValeyard wrote: »

Definitely going to be watching this later on tonight.

Interesting RTE decided to visit all the whistleblowers cases in a special this week! Coincidence?

The Black Oil

Whistleblower certainly stuck his neck out.

My name is URL

blanch152 wrote: »

I know that the sensible examination of this that I have outlined won't go far with the mob that believes FF/FG/State wrong and everyone else right

You are a lot less sincere than you believe you are appearing to be, and I doubt anyone still buys it

This needs a crowd funded case against the department of health to get to the bottom of this.

Calhoun

The Black Oil wrote: »

The grubbiness of the apparatus of the Irish State never fails to surprise me. Defensive, protect the institution at all costs.

This is the same institution who dragged allot of dying Irish women through the courts, with the same exec who seems to be using covid19 as a way to rehabilitate his public image.

Cards on the table my daughter is on the ASD spectrum and i have had to deal with the organization quite a bit.

Nothing in the article today or the program surprised me, the whole organization is about self preservation rather than serving their clients.

My daughter entered the early development program (Spraoi) when she was two she did not get seen until just before she was 5 and by that stage they moved her onto the school age team. The assessment of need that really is the lynchpin of your childs diagnosis and has legally binding they did not complete and lied to us about it.

They literally have gate keepers who your only way of dealing with is through legal process or you get no where.

To further illustrate the disdain of the organization to its clients, all of the psychologist and staff to help children have been moved to covid 19 testing and injection work. What ever little service they had is on hold while vulnerable children regress.

Mam of 4

It's honestly sickening imo , absolutely disgraceful.
When you think of how hard it is for parents , having to battle and fight to get the much needed , proper services for their children , often taking years , and this is what's going on behind the scenes without their knowledge or consent? Sickening.

spaceHopper

The Black Oil wrote: »

Whistleblower certainly stuck his neck out.

Give what we have all seen happened to McCabe and the other Guarda whistle blowers he has huge balls fair play to him.

If I was one of those families I'd be making a data access request for the records and I'd start at the bottom and work my way up, Dr you broke Dr patient rules please appear before the medical council....

ShineOn7

spaceHopper wrote: »

Government builds a cross department detailed dossier on child and family so that they can use it against the family should they restart the case. Using medical and psychiatric profile to pick best time to approach them to settle the case, aka when they are under the most personal pressure throw them a bone.

That would be enough for a big head to roll in any other nation

In Ireland; it'll just be another Friday

I've said it many times in the last 12 months: there's something genuinely wrong with this country

bridest

What kind of snakes do we live among!?

ujjjjjjjjj

I can only but admire the courage of this whistle blower.

Literally lost for words, doctor / patient confidentiality is a cornerstone of medical practice. For the Department of Health (yes the irony of it all) to seek to put pressure on doctors and medical professionals to break this cornerstone and it seems they succeded in gaining information in some cases is staggering.

This is quite simply totally unacceptable.

Any doctors who passed information without patient consent should be struck off and heads need to role in the Department of Health. This was not just an errant civil servant but a practice in the Department.

No doubt days of smoke and mirrors coming up......

OscarMIlde

spaceHopper wrote: »

https://www.rte.ie/news/investigations-unit/2021/0324/1205962-department-of-health-dossiers-children-autism/

This beggars belief that they think this is OK.

Family take high court action to force Government to provide care for Autistic children. Get some care so pause the case.

Government builds a cross department detailed dossier on child and family so that they can use it against the family should they restart the case. Using medical and psychiatric profile to pick best time to approach them to settle the case, aka when they are under the most personal pressure throw them a bone.

Not the least bit surprised considering my family's experience.