Cover-up to protect hospital's reputation.

political analyst

https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2023/0214/1356595-laoise-ni-scolai/

I could understand the HSE not wanting to automatically admit fault due to insurance issues - a bit like when one who has caused a car accident is advised not to admit fault immediately.

However, that didn't mean that staff at the Coombe had to lie to baby Laoise's parents. The father said that he and his wife were prevented by the master of the hospital from leaving the office until they signed documents - an alleged case of false imprisonment!

If the hospital is HSE-run, then its existence is not in doubt. So why would staff at the Coombe think it was necessary to protect the hospital's reputation?

Obviously Master & colleagues paranoid people would lose confidence in its services, and become particularly intrusive on the staff whilst they’re working. This is not an excuse, of course, it’s the best way I can explain it. Of course initially facts have to be established before admissions could be made, but I’d say it was pretty clear shortly after autopsy report exactly what had happened.

BrianD3

The HSE and health service generally is rotten with incompetence, abuse, greed and corruption. Hospitals, nursing homes, homecare. Front line staff and management.

When staff are immersed in this culture, it's probably a human, face saving, Stockholm Syndrome type instinct to cover things up. Lies get heaped on top of incompetence, compounding the problem. Even though salaries and pensions would still have been paid had staff been truthful.

Whistleblowers are notable by how few of them there are.

Although I didn't see anything in the report about false imprisonment - a new low for the HSE if true, becoming more like a criminal organisation by the day. I'll be ready for that the next time I have to tackle them over their ineptitude.

Topgear on Dave

If it was a private hospital or private providers involved you'd never hear the end of it but this is the hse and it will blow over fairly quickly.

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120241010#Comment_120241010

If preventing people from leaving the room isn't false imprisonment then what the hell is?!

As for the health service, it's a bit rich of health professionals, via their unions, to criticise the government for not caring about the health service when some of those professionals treat bereaved parents appallingly.

BrianD3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120241697#Comment_120241697

I missed that bit about the room - it sounds like false imprisonment alright.

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120241767#Comment_120241767

It's extraordinary that the baby's dad says that to the press and nothing happens afterwards.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120242248#Comment_120242248

The Master was/is female, we can’t be having the ladies taken to task. Note, I’m female. Don’t really know if that’s really anything to do with it though, just thought the press mightn't feel easy pointing the finger there. The press were very strong in reaction to the Sunita Halapanaver case, but there was already a strong pre-existing popular agenda to which it was fed into. Taking the female Master of a top maternity hospital to task, I imagine, might not be something the press will be overly keen to do. Though I may be proved wrong.

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120242312#Comment_120242312

Are you sure that it was a female doctor who was the master of the Coombe in 2015?

BrianD3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120242248#Comment_120242248

This thread will likely fizzle out soon, just like previous threads on the health service. Meanwhile, threads on "celebrities" from Elon Musk to Enoch Burke will continue getting lots of views and posts.

People are distracted by bullsh*t and seemingly don't want to hear about actual issues that will likely affect them personally at some point. The media is complicit in this, it decides which stories and angles to push. In this case, we have an allegation of false imprisonment by public servants buried in the middle of the story - should be huge, isn't.

Another story which should have been huge was the killing of Matthew Healy in a public hospital. Yet, ask a random person on the street what they think of what happened to him and most will say "Matthew Who?".

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058284276/cover-up-to-protect-hospitals-reputation

As a form fraud investor I learned a long time a go that everyone paints the situation in the best possible light to suit themselves and you should never believe what either side says because people will always surprise you. In the end the truth will end out because most people have terrible memory and poor organization, so they’ll trip themselves up. Far too early to early to draw any conclusions or get locked into an option.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120241448#Comment_120241448

“You’d never hear of it”

FTFY.

witchgirl26

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120242314#Comment_120242314

Fairly easy to look up who was master in the Coombe over the years and yes, in 2015 the master of the Coombe was a woman.

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120242548#Comment_120242548

I don't think that the issues of free speech on social media and gender identity in schools are BS, to be honest. As for the killing of a man in a hospital, that case is sub judice.

Cluedo Monopoly

There is an Irish culture of protecting the institution first and foremost. Very sad case though.

screamer

I felt so sorry for them, what a horrible ordeal you could see it in their faces. The HSE generally treats people who have negative outcomes very adversarially and it’s not good enough.

Floppybits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120244516#Comment_120244516

Seems to be the way especially in the Public and Civil Service organisations and god help anyone who is brave enough to put their heads above the parapet and call it out, then the weight of the establishment will come down on top of you. The HSE just seems to be a organisation that was set up to house incompetent management from top to bottom. I am not talking frontline staff like Drs, nurses, consultants, porters, etc, not saying there is no frontline staff incompetent as I am sure there are but with the pressure the frontline staff are under not dealing with patients, overcrowding and on top of that incompetent management then I ask mistakes and sometimes life altering/ending mistake are going to happen, I am talking about the managers and management of the HSE those above the people on the frontline, the paper pushers and ones that seem to go out of their way to make life even harder for the frontline personnel.

Newstalk's lunchtime show did a whole week on the bullying that staff face from Management in the HSE and to tell you the truth it just seems to be such a horrendous place to work, I don't even know how those on frontline deliver the service.

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120244604#Comment_120244604

Management didn't remove a healthy kidney from a boy instead of the diseased one - surgeons did. Management didn't cause the deaths of babies in Portlaoise either!

jmayo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120242585#Comment_120242585

A fraud investor ?

Not may people admit to that.

No matter what way you may want to portrait this, what is not in doubt is that they (the hospital as in a member of their staff) killed the baby and they refused to admit liability and dragged out the process as long as possible.

As has been seen in numerous cases down through the years it is standard operating procedure for the medical profession, the hospitals, the HSE and Dept of Health.

And no matter what mealy mouthed shyte some politcian or indeed medical manager or medical professional comes out with, it keeps on happening.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120246592#Comment_120246592

Management are often medical professionals.

And management collude in hiding the truth.

The whole system is septic and disgusting.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120248720#Comment_120248720

A fraud investor = fraud investigator, auto correct fails again.

Of course there is doubt! Nobody on this forum was there, has access to the documents etc... so it is speculation, some perhaps educated, some not. In the end it will come out but too early to start jumping to conclusion just now.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120244604#Comment_120244604

In this particular case, it was the frontline staff who lied from day one.

Easy to blame management, even easier to blame politicians, but this was an incompetent medic sheltered by his peers.

If a medic who performs a procedure lies to management about what happened, as in this case, then it is on the medic.

Jarhead_Tendler

True but it filtered up so all are complicit

archfi

I went to school with the mother, Irene.

A really lovely person - a terrible thing to have happened and the subsequent being lied to. I can't imagine.

BrianD3

The best time to get any honesty out of a health care worker is immediately after something bad has happened. At that point, most haven't had time to compose themselves and "get their story straight". The Institutional Stockholm Syndrome hasn't kicked in yet. Of course they can always deny later on that they said something or if they do admit saying it, claim that they were in shock.

Given how bad things are with abysmal communication and record keeping and the arrogant, adversarial attitudes of many HCWs, patients and their relatives would nearly need to have a voice recorder and notebook on them anytime they interact with a HCW.

Doc07

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120249246#Comment_120249246

How do you know this?

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120248720#Comment_120248720

I meant 'management' to refer to senior clerical staff in hospitals.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120250249#Comment_120250249

It is all in the articles. The doctors lied, the nurses lied, they told the parents that the twin who died was the weak one, when it was the opposite case. That all happened before management got involved. To attempt to protect themselves, the medics kept lying.

Heighway61

Dr Scally added that in 2019 he warned that Ireland was the only country in Europe that has legislation that bans a person making a complaint about their clinical treatment. The legislation at present says a patient is not entitled to make a complaint about clinical care, a clinical judgment about doctors or nurses service treating, he explained.

“You can complain about the length of time you might have to wait and you can complain if your room is dirty or if something else goes wrong. But if it's about the clinical care, you're actually banned from making a complaint.

“That legal ban is carried through into the HSE complaints procedure. The wording is really quite brutal. It says a person is not entitled to make complaints.”

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/patient-safety-bill-quite-narrow-in-scope-dr-gabriel-scally-says-1434463.html

Ass-covering to the nth degree.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120253129#Comment_120253129

There is a culture among the medical profession that doctors and nurses can't be wrong. This is a longstanding culture in Ireland, and no administrator or management or Minister can change that. It has to come from the medical profession.

Go back as far as that butcher who worked in Drogheda and mutilated all those women. It was the administrative and management staff that eventually called him out on it, when all of the medical professionals failed to intervene. It cost some of them careers at the time.

Witcher

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120253250#Comment_120253250

'Go back as far as that butcher who worked in Drogheda and mutilated all those women. It was the administrative and management staff that eventually called him out on it'

No, it wasn't lol a somewhat twisted version of events there.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120253362#Comment_120253362

The medical staff around Neary sabotaged medical files when the investigation started.

Yes, there were two midwives involved in exposing him, but it was actually a senior administrator who pushed this along against the will of the whole medical community in Drogheda.