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Poll: Who do you think is ultimately responsible for how the Portlaoise breast testing scandal was handled?

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John(johnwilliams)  Posted: 24/11/2007 19:55

Mary harney is the political head of the Dept of Health which controls (or should do) the HSE. I heard this morning on Morning Ireland a woman who had been mis-diagnosed in Portlaoise and developed full blown cancer had an appointment for a mastectomy today. When she turned up at the hospital the operation was postponed because there was no bed. Another appointment was made for 5 days time but the hospital could not guarantee a bed even then. Can you believe it? Mary Harney has been telling us that there are plenty of beds. Where are they Mary? Mary, resign before you do any more damage!

Anthony(WLB66255)  Posted: 25/11/2007 21:13

I have sympathy for the Minister, but not much. This fiasco has its origins in the insane decision of the former Health Board to set up three (!!) cancer centres in the midlands. The Minister, and her predcessor, are ultimately responsible, not for the crazy decision, but for the failure to hit the MHB sharply over the head, and stop them.

jane  Posted: 26/11/2007 01:38

Of course Mary Harney is responsible. She bears ultimate responsibility, while giving the impression that the HSE is at fault. This is designed to take the heat off her but as Min Health the buck stops with her.

JAM  Posted: 26/11/2007 10:20

Mary Harney went into this job with the best of intentions but she is clearly not up to the job when it comes to taking on vested interests. Her colleagues in government are no help to her as they have interests of their own. Bertie will not sack her as he knows that Fianna Fail will have to shoulder the health portfolio again.

liz(NLU46347)  Posted: 26/11/2007 10:21

I am a employer anything goes wrong i take and am legally responsible so why should Mary Harney be any different after all she is part of government WHICH says employers are responsible for all that goes on in their company so hse is her company so she should hold up her hand. This is human lives.

gar  Posted: 26/11/2007 13:19

hse management and mary harney, they refused to update equipment

NME  Posted: 26/11/2007 15:09

Mary Harney and Professor Drumm (who recently had an extremely extravagant bonus paid to him :-( - what the hell is going on - if I made an error one millionth the magnitude of this I'd have my P45 in the post TODAY... There's no incentive for these overpaid executives to perform because there is no sanction when they don't..... it's just another case of the "cosy cartels" that operate with impunity in this country.

wwwsoldiersofdestiny  Posted: 26/11/2007 15:25

Last year the neurosurgeons at Beaumont hospital threatened to resign en mass unless new equipment was purchased.The rot is endless. The pay increases for TDs are never postponed! Details here: http://www.soldiersofdestiny.org/narkyneurosurgeons.htm

r(MQZ11200)  Posted: 26/11/2007 15:54

Prof Donal Hollywood a top cancer specialist in St James recommended that the Midland Health Board centralise cancer services to Tullamore General back in 1998 to ensure best outcomes for patients.I understand that he needed a police escort after leaving a meeting in Portlaoise such was the local opposition from local politicians and campaigners. They are the facts.......... The old Midland Health Board was left with a second rate service using out of date equipment in three hospitals But hey the service was local and people with health insurance like politicians etc could always go to Dublin The whole mindset to health is all wrong.

Ursula(QJQ54412)  Posted: 26/11/2007 17:58

Mary Harney is not a radiologist. While I don't have much faith in OUR health services she cannot take all the flak for this one. What confuses me is that the whole situation only came to light, because the Director of Nursing was worried about the numbers of false positives, and not the number of false negatives???

brandy  Posted: 26/11/2007 18:30

Sirs, johnwilliams (and many others) are perfectly correct in laying the blame on Mary Harney; she is (or as john says..should be) in control of the H.S.E. Her immediate resignation would be the most ethical scenario...if not the likeliest....because we all realise now that Irish 'gravy-trainers' (sorry - politicians) are not averse to 'sticking it out to the last' ! The oft-quoted little device of 'sticking it out' 'till the 'job' is done...is less about political probity...and more about securing their own financial futures: I quote from last Sundays Independent (Analysis p.33)... Health Minister Mary Harney: Salary: €240,000; Pension: Tax-free lump sum of one and a half times final salary (€360,000) plus 60% of final salary every year (€144,000) Generous Defined-Benefit Pension which is inflation proof and is guaranteed. Includes spousal pension worth half of full amount if she dies while in office. Cost of pension if in the private sector: €4.1 million. The above figures should be more 'proof' (if more was needed ) of the greed and corruption within politics in Ireland ! I would quote 'Berties' figures...but I'm feeling quite ill enough at the moment, thank you !! Is it not obvious to us all, now, why 'Bertie' gave himself and the other 'gravy-trainers' those inflated increases ? And if people say that they were awarded this increase by an 'independent' assessor...it will show what an idiotic, gullible electorate is out there and small wonder the 'nonpareils' in politics are laughing all the way to the bank (even if it's off-shore)

bertie  Posted: 29/11/2007 17:08

I think Mary Harney is trying her best to sort out our antiquated health system. We can't blame her for everything; give her a break and let her get on with the job.

clarity  Posted: 29/11/2007 18:39

Mary Harney volunteered for the post of minister, she set up the HSE, she has responsibility for how it runs whether she likes it or not. I agree that she can't solve all the issues, who can? The best suggestion from her is that a bipartisan approach be taken in relation to cancer services. In fact if there were a multi party approach to health it might just get things moving. I'm sick of listening to Bertie and the rest of his party hiding behind Mary Harney, her blaming the HSE, and all others criticising whatever is done. Until a united approach is taken, she's in the job and is responsible. If she can't take the criticism then she should get out of the job! She created the current mess, and gave jobs for life to dead wood who are now helping 'run' the service.

Maursie  Posted: 29/11/2007 19:06

Mary Harney is in full control of the H.S.E. She is totally responsible. HSE are doing exactly what she wants. She makes the policies which are based loosely on the NHS in UK and look what a disaster that is!She should go straight away!!

Mary(UGG64756)  Posted: 29/11/2007 19:15

I totally agree with NME. If Mary Harney and Prof Drumm were employed in private sector company and made mistakes of this magnitude they would be sacked and /or prosecuted. There seems no to be no limit to how much these people can get away with and still take home huge pay and bonuses. It's time we Irish took to the streets to protest- why the hell do we put up with this???

brandy  Posted: 29/11/2007 19:52

clarity, Thank you...Clarity by name...and clarity by post.

Rose(BOX63771)  Posted: 29/11/2007 22:12

hearing that woman's name sickens me......

Alistair(YIG32089)  Posted: 29/11/2007 22:31

When Mary Harney was told directly by Dr Naughton in July 2005 that there was a major problem with the breast cancer services, she simply passed on the matter to the HSE. She should have invited Dr Naughton to meet her, or even gone down to Portlaoise herself to see the situation at first hand. That is what a real minister would have done.

sully  Posted: 29/11/2007 23:28

I do not blame Mary Harney for this mess. After dealing with consultants when I had surgery for Breast Cancer in 1999 I found the health system was so full of concern for themselves and not the patient. Eight years on I am still in pain from the damage done to me and only for the wisdom of a nurse in St Lukes hospital in Dublin who researched the problem and found out what was causing so much pain, when the consultants were trying to make out it was all in my head. Thank God for that wise and caring woman. So from my experience its a more complex problem that pointing the finger at Mary Harney. Health is not about protecting the patient it is about legally protecting the Health Staff right the way up to the top. ow often have we seen this. Change that and maybe just maybe we would have a better system for the patients.

Anson  Posted: 30/11/2007 00:42

The Minister is responsible for her dept so she should do the decent thing and resign

Anon  Posted: 30/11/2007 03:52

Mary Harney did not set up the HSE. That was done by her predecessor M. Martin. She definitely knew that there were problems in Cork because there was a court case ongoing. She definitely knew that there was a letter stating that the equipment in Port Laoise was outdated. She definately knew that Prof Drumm and his 'aide' Mr O'Brien were compiling a report and were to report to the Committee last week so why did she not know, in advance, what they were going to report? Interesting that she is refusing to step down. If that is what the people want, then why does she continue to ignore the wishes of the people? Is that not her ego running away with her over and above her concern for 'patients'?

Disalousioned  Posted: 30/11/2007 09:06

All I want to say is we have moved away from a society who cares about people and their welfare and moved into a system that cares only about bed numbers and turnover of patients'. I know we are dealing with greater numbers of sick people and this needs to be managed but untill we allow our front line staff to deliver the care they were trained to do we will never be able to say we have a good never mind a reasonable health service. Frontline staff are diillusioned and sick of the constant bureaucracy of top line management without having a chance to voice their concern's or advocate for patients'. This would always have been a major part of their job. Sadly no more!!!!!

Pat  Posted: 30/11/2007 09:38

National HSE management. This was reported at local level but nothing as done by HSE National Management.

tyang  Posted: 30/11/2007 09:39

i think mary harney has a lot to answer for i had a cancer scare last year and to be honest im terrified right now.. she set up the HSE and then left it to what in my book is a pack of incompitent idiots so now we have everyone involved tryin to pass the buck, while we the nation are left to worry and pick up the pieces,i wish she could spend a day in my shoes so maybe then she would understand how we the women of ireland feel waiting for that letter to hit the mat

Brianne  Posted: 30/11/2007 09:46

Retraining in breast services is needed across the board - even honest GPs admit they are not all that sure about diagnosis. I attended my GP with a lump behind my nipple. He assured me it was "nothing" as breast cancer presented with a pea-like lump in the armpit, he said. One month later I went back to him again and he was still reassuring that it was ok. Sadly, one month and a second opinion later, I had a diagnosis of a grade 3 tumour and had to have a full mastectomy. Since then, on two occasions, I attended 2 other doctors when I felt I had concerns about the other breast. Happily, so far so good, but one doctor told me that he honestly could not tell me what was muscle and what was breast tissue. How do we women know when we are attending someone competent? I agree that it is a step forward to have centres of excellence established, but we cannot walk into them when we have concerns - we have to rely on our doctors referring us. I beleive there should be a "drop in" centre somewhere in Ireland where there are staff available who know what they are looking for when someone presents with breast concerns.

Pat,Clare.  Posted: 30/11/2007 09:48

The Minister is trying to absolve herself of her Ministerial responsibilities and duties to the Irish people. Shame on her and her Government for allowing our People to die of curable illnesses and for trying to blame shift at every opportunity. Being poor or sick condemns us to illness and untimely death,Mary Harney doesn't even show Human emotion for the sufferers.

Anonymous   Posted: 30/11/2007 12:01

I find a lot of people very confused about this. The fact is: Mary Harney set up the HSE. It is HER vision and only she (as Minister of Health) had the power to put in place the structures which have failed abysmally. Bertie tells us that Mary is responsible for re-structuring and will see it through. WHAT does that mean? HOW can she be 'responsible' and at the same time not involved? The confusion lies in hearing her say that she i.e. the Dept of Health is 'separate' from HSE. That she was not "informed" of what was going on!! Mary Harney is determined to make Ireland a carbon copy of America. That means the poor die because they can't afford private insurance. She is 'carried away' by theory. I'm not sure she UNDERSTANDS the theory. If I were being very unkind I would say - from the look of her - she understands very little about keeping healthy, never mind how to keep the population healthy. These people are playing politics with people's lives. Over and over again we hear how the government is failing to provide decent health care - not just cancer care. Why then do they keep pushing the tired and failed theory Mary Harney has instituted? Either she is responsible for health policy and structure or she is not. If she is not, why do we have a Dept of Health? How many civil servants are employed there? How does Mary Harney justify her large salary and recent salary increase if she has no control (or is NOT RESPONSIBLE) for what she has created? The language of government in this and many other matters, is the language of the arrogant. It is not that they KNOW more than the rest of us but they are so puffed up with their own importance that they 'confuse' by jargon and self-aggrandising statements while people die from neglect. It's all bluster - like Bertie's explanation for the 'dig-outs'. We (the people) who pay their salaries need to make more demands, like the demand to know what the Health Minister actually does for her money.

minnie  Posted: 30/11/2007 12:26

Mary Harney is the only one who can sort out the HSE problems. She has the courage and determination to succeed given a chance. The major changes required do not happen overnight and I for one have given up paying VHI knowing that there will be treatment there if urgently needed. I am 72 years of age and have spent some time on hospital trolleys even in the past while a VHI patient, and was very grateful indeed for being looked after on what I considered a bed not a trolley.

Anonymous  Posted: 30/11/2007 13:26

The question is "Who is ultimately responsible.." The HSE are, of course, responsible but ULTIMATELY it is the Ministers responsibility. If it is not, then why do we have a Minister of Health at all?

Anonymous   Posted: 30/11/2007 14:57

Minnie, I commend your blind faith in believing you will be looked after as public patient. YUou only jhave to lookj at the Sust Long case ton know how inaccurate that is. No patient should be so cowed down that they feel very grateful for getting the treatment to which they are entitled. Anonymous Posted: 30/11/2007 12:01, your comment in relation to Mary Harney's appearance is neither desirable nor relevant.

mary  Posted: 30/11/2007 15:28

I believe we would be best served by a good public health service, this means no private health care at all. Compare Canada with the USA.

Anonymous   Posted: 30/11/2007 16:22

I am one of the "vested interests" in the health service. I work as a medic on the frontline and have been passionately dedicated to improving the care of patients in our emergency departments for years. Sadly, like many of my colleagues, I am no longer sure if I can continue for much longer. I have never known the situation to be so bad in the health service trenches: every morning there are dozens of patients on trolleys in my very sizeable department; the staff are in utter despair and nearly half of the nurses (in unprecedented dozens) have resigned this year; people occasionally write to the local paper and complain about the shocking conditions that they have experienced. Yet nothing changes (despite what PD politicians say on the radio). We need more beds, doctors and nurses desperately. But what we get is less of everything except for patients (their numbers are rising inexorably due to drink, drugs, obesity, violence, and GP-less migrants who have a remarkable propensity for injury at work or play. Oh, and don’t forget those referred into the public A&E department once the private sector has taken their money but has decided it doesn’t want any ongoing risk or hassle). The most demoralizing thing of all though - and this is something which comes up every day in conversation between the staff as we struggle (or should I say slave) to cope and comfort our patients - is that we never ever see any kind of senior manager or politician, except in the few weeks leading up to a General Election. Over the past decade, I cannot recall a single visit by a senior manager to this department to offer help to frontline staff, never mind leadership, despite the fact that patients and staff are condemned by under-resourcing to suffer miserably in the grossly overloaded and toxic environment which characterizes this place – and many other A&E departments in Ireland - at the moment. In my view, in fact, it is only a matter of time before a TB or MRSA epidemic actually begins in one of our A&E departments. After all, that’s what happened with SARS in a crowded Emergency Department in Toronto. If Minister Harney or Professor Drumm are guilty of anything (beside creating a monstrous bureaucracy and a vastly expanded and predatory private health service that takes precious human and financial resources from the public system while excreting its mistakes back into the public facilities at the drop of a hat), it is a complete failure of leadership. The first duty of a leader must surely be to inspire and give hope: at the frontline, where our “leaders” are invisible, inaudible and frankly incredible, there is little or no hope.

Tara  Posted: 03/12/2007 13:31

It is about time the people of this country stop pointing the finger at politicians, and start looking at the civil servants, their lack of standards of practice, their priorities of tea breaks and shorter working hours. I do however blame the politicians for allowing the civil servants to remain in positions for life, and allowing pay rises for the incompetent and lazy. Let's start pushing for a proper overhaul, and that includes getting rid of the dead weight.

Anonymous   Posted: 03/12/2007 18:58

Anonymous Posted: 30/11/2007 14:57:"your comment in relation to Mary Harney's appearance is neither desirable nor relevant." Actually given the FARCE that is our Health Service, the allusion IS "desirable", "relevant", and even COMIC. Were it not for the fact that this particular farce - headed by Harney - is killing people, one could only laugh at the absurdity of her self-aggrandisement. Health advertising (paid by our taxes) WARNS on the dangers of obesity; it tells us that obesity is one of the major public health issues in the country; that it can lead to increased risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. It exhorts US to eat and drink in moderation and be physically ACTIVE. It tells us: ' it is a FACT that - apart from specific and diagnosable glandular disorders - the imbalance between energy IN (through food and drink) and energy OUT (through physical activity), is the root cause of obesity'. From the evidence presenting, Mary Harney sits behind a desk and THINKS. On her word, policies are implemented. Listening to her own words, others to do the work. Once Mary has thought the thoughts, she is no longer responsible. No problem if the policy is transparent, effectively administered and controlled. No problem if 'the buck stops at the top'. No problem if the 'thinker' is a living example of the efficacy of such policies. In this specific case none of the above codicils apply ergo, my ironic allusion to 'appearance'.

Anonymous   Posted: 04/12/2007 12:59

Anonymous To state that the imbalance between energy IN and energy OUT is the root cause of obesity is oversimplification on a vast scale. The causes of obesity are multi-factorial and a grat deal more complex than you suggest. Unless a persons weight causes such a disability that it renders them physical incapable of doing their job - any job, it is irrelevant. Period. Afterall, we don't examine the personal household budget of the minister for finance or the state the minister of agricultures garden is in, do we?

sceptical  Posted: 04/12/2007 14:51

Looks like this board is overloading with 'anonymous' opinion. Easier identification has been requested by 'brandy': This then is from - Anonymous 1 (posted : 30/11/2007 12:01) and Anonymous (Posted: 03/12/2007 18:58). I have adopted the nickname 'sceptical'. In the light of deflection from the main topic to a diagnosis of obesity, I would clarify as follows: 1) I have NO medical qualifications per se. I have no interest in Mary Harney's personal eating habits. I DO have a sense of the absurd. 2) The information I have given on obesity is quoted from GOVERNMENT Health leaflets and RTE Radio 1 clips on GOVERNMENT-backed Health advice to the public. However, a GP of my acquaintance often comments: "The great majority of the grossly overweight refuse to believe that what they need to do is EAT LESS'. Apologies to 'anonymous' who has taken issue with what was merely a slight 'aside', a quip - or perhaps, a descent into 'black humour'. None of which detracts from the fact that response to the tragedy (more unfolding every day) which is the Irish Health Service, has been met by an horrific pantomime of 'hand-washing' and self-interest on the part of FF. I would be hard-put to write the script from imagination. Comedy (on stage and film) is often underpinned by tragedy. Our tragedy here is that we have consistently voted in the clowns. Had we paid more attention to "examin[ing] the personal household budget" of, for example, Charlie Haughey, the FF culture of personal advancement at the cost of the 'greatest good of the greatest number' (i.e. the people) would not be 'brushed under the carpet' in Ireland today. They get away with it because we accept the words, at face value. We ignore the waste, the arrogance, and the visible lifestyles of wealth and plenty - all to our own detriment.

Martha-Stewart  Posted: 19/12/2007 16:19

RE: Tara Posted: 03/12/2007 13:31 Tara, I am a civil servant. Yes, I get a pay increase each year which many private companies offer!! I am neither incompetent or lazy. Nor am I 'dead weight'. I do not take long tea breaks and I always work my full shift. I work hard and I really enjoy my job. The worst thing about working within the HSE is that the general public assume that you do nothing. The main problem lies with HSE management not people like me. I am one of the frustrated HSE employees who deal with the annoyed public each and every day. I suggest you dont 'assume' or tar us all with the same brush. You are out of order with your post. The problem lies with the higher grades and some of the managers, not the lower grades of staff who do 'ALL' the tough work.

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