Sir, – The news that Minister of State for Children and Disability Anne Rabbitte walked out of a meeting with senior HSE officials once again shows that Ireland is a failed state in regard to child disability services provision (News, September 14th). Extremely well-paid permanent senior health services who spent the last few years talking about “protecting the vulnerable” continue to fail our most vulnerable children.
The question now arises as to who exactly is providing oversight of the HSE? We have HIQA, the Department of Health, the Ombudsman, the Children’s Ombudsman, the Oireachtas Health Committee and the Minister for Health, yet unfortunately when it comes to non-delivery of child disability services the only functioning option available to parents seems to be taking a High Court action.
For years, individual parents have repeatedly been forced to take costly High Court actions over the non-delivery of basic disability services that in any other country are viewed as basic human rights but in Ireland seem to be viewed by HSE senior management as an act of charity for which vulnerable children should somehow be grateful. Not only is the taxpayer-funded HSE failing to provide basic services, it is racking up eye-watering legal fees in an effort to avoid providing these services.
Irish children with disabilities are citizens of this State and are perfectly entitled to participate fully in Irish society, and the HSE receives huge sums annually from the Irish taxpayer for which it should be providing the services to enable them to do so. Sadly the HSE continually fails to provide even basic child therapy services and when it fails to do so all these well-funded oversight bodies are remarkably silent on the HSE’s failings. Politicians and weak oversight bodies in continually failing to hold permanent health service management accountable are failing these children and effectively allowing the HSE to steal their futures. HSE managerial waste and inefficiency are not victimless; it is children with disabilities who are paying the price.
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Outside of the High Court, oversight of HSE and Department of Health senior management is non-existent. This contrasts entirely with frontline doctors, nurses and therapists working in the HSE who face public regulatory body inquiries for failings. Where is the independent oversight of HSE and Department of Health senior managers? Where are the consequences for HSE and Department of Health managers who consistently fail to deliver child disability services?
A proper system of oversight for dealing with non-delivering permanent health service management is long overdue. Politicians as well as representative groups for frontline medical and therapy staff need to speak out here; their silence is enabling further failings. Overworked medical and therapy staff are understandably looking at better options abroad due to misallocation of resources by inefficient Department of Health and HSE senior managers.
If politicians and oversight bodies continue to refuse to speak out or lack the courage to challenge powerful permanent health service management, we need to ask whether taxpayer funds should still be given to them, given they clearly are not providing any meaningful oversight of the HSE.
When a parent successfully takes a High Court it is a last resort. It is also a sign that our oversight bodies have failed. – Yours, etc,
RUARY MARTIN,
Sandyford,
Dublin 18.