Relatives: Families of elderly people who died after being in Leas Cross yesterday angrily confronted HSE officials, saying they had been ignored and treated badly.
At a press briefing, families demanded an apology and said they had not been informed of the report's publication. They called for individual inquiries into their relatives' cases.
They said they had also initially been blocked at the door from going into the conference.
Catherine O'Flynn said her mother, Annie Flynn, died in February 2004 in Leas Cross. She said her concern was what had happened subsequently with the officials and her position was never acknowledged. She said she wrote to the HSE in 2005 and there was not one acknowledgment. "The people who died in Leas Cross are not being talked about today. They are the forgotten victims. It's unacceptable. It could all have been handled so differently. We're not the enemy," she said.
"I'm an ordinary middle-aged woman and I'm not used to being treated like a leper. I had to queue up here like a child today to get the report," Ms O'Flynn said.
She said the treatment of relatives was unacceptable and she demanded an apology.
Aidan Browne, the HSE's national director for primary, community and continuing care services, said he could understand the annoyance of the families. The former chief executive of the Northern Area Health Board had expressed her deepest regret that a number of patients at Leas Cross were injured during their residency there.
"We share this regret. I don't have a difficulty in apologising to relatives but unfortunately an apology is not very valuable in this case," he said.
He said he also apologised for the fact that there had been a very difficult, very cumbersome review process and he deeply regretted the substandard care at Leas Cross.
"You are not the enemy and neither are we. I apologise if you feel you were not appropriately contacted. I thought we'd written to everybody. We have sent out about 80 copies, it was not our intention to leave anybody out," he said.
Mary Hegarty said her mother, Kitty Mullins, died in February 2004. They had taken her out of Leas Cross because she was so ill. She had made a complaint about it a month before that. She said she was one of several families who received no notification of the report's publication. "This has compounded the level of disrepute to the families," she said.
She said they had to have attainability and an independent inquiry was necessary.
Mr Browne said the HSE acknowledged that it had failed in its duty to provide appropriate quality of care.
When Ms Hegarty asked if that was accountability, Mr Browne replied: "That's the level of accountability open to us at the moment."
Tony Walsh was at the briefing with his brother, Shane, and sister, Isolde Hampson. He said his father died in Beaumont in April 2003 after being in Leas Cross. He said he had no problem with the report but it did not answer their questions.
He claimed, emotionally, that the family needed answers. The report had not answered their questions about the way their father had died.
Ms Hampson said the family had submitted two sets of medical documents to the HSE in September 2005 and were given to understand that there would be an inquiry into her father's case. However, there had been no further acknowledgment.
Mr Browne said: "A report is being done into each individual case and relatives will be informed. That is the reality. It is a cumbersome process."