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THE BISHOP OF Elphin has said the Sisters of Charity will have to obey the rules of the Catholic Church if they become the owners of the new national maternity hospital.
There has been growing controversy about the issue in recent days, with many people expressing concern about what impact the religious order owning the hospital could have on how it is run.
In a statement to the Sunday Times, Bishop Kevin Doran said: “Any healthcare organisation bearing the name Catholic, while offering care to all who need it, has a special responsibility … to Catholic teachings about the value of human life and the dignity and the ultimate destiny of the human person.”
Health Minister Simon Harris has insisted the hospital will be independently run despite being under the ownership of the order, which owns the land at St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin 4 where the new hospital is set to be built.
On foot of the scrutiny, St Vincent’s Healthcare Group, of whom the Sisters of Charity are a major shareholder, said on Friday it would review the status of the current plans.
Speaking about Doran’s comments, Fine Gael TD Colm Brophy told RTÉ’s The Week in Politics: “The comment of somebody asked to clarify what a position is or whatever does not in my opinion override the very clear legal agreement, including the establishment of that memorandum of understanding to run the hospital which has been put in place which gives the safeguards which we wanted and need to have for a modern, 21st century hospital.”
Details of the agreement were published in the Sunday Independent today. The report notes that a clause in the deal protects the hospital’s clinical services from “religions, ethnic or other discrimination”.
During the week, the former master of Holles Street national maternity hospital Dr Peter Boylan questioned if the Sisters of Charity would allow certain procedures to be performed at the new hospital, such as abortion, sterilisation, gender reassignment surgery and IVF.
In response to this, the current Holles Street master Dr Rhona Mahony told RTÉ: “There is a triple lock in place to guarantee absolute autonomy and independence of the clinical services we deliver.”
Newspaper leak
Also on The Week in Politics, Labour Senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin accused Harris of leaking the agreement to the Sunday Independent.
You have a minister that makes a deal in secret, doesn’t bring it to Cabinet and then, rather than coming on a show like this, on which you’d expect to have some comment from a senior government minister, leaks it to a Sunday newspaper … How else would a Sunday newspaper get the deal?
“The deal should be in front of Cabinet, they say they haven’t see it. The independent ministers say they haven’t seen it. It should be in front of the Oireachtas, it should be in front of the health committee.”
Brophy accused Ó Ríordáin of playing party politics and said he didn’t think it was worth replying to his claim Harris had leaked the information.
‘Lost in the Ring of Kerry’
On the same programme, Fianna Fáil TD James Lawless said the whole situation “reminds me of the tourist that gets lost in the Ring Of Kerry and asks a local for directions and the answer is ‘Well, I wouldn’t start from here’.”
Lawless said people are “really irked” by the deal, noting that a complex property structure “between public and private ownership, between the State and Church” goes back decades if not centuries.
How did we get into this mess? How did the Minister for Health, how did the Taoiseach on behalf of government sign off on this six months ago? Did they not anticipate these kind of problems?
Speaking at the Irish Medical Organisation AGM in Galway yesterday, Harris called for “cool heads” in the debate, stating that a new national maternity hospital is something “women and infants in this country desperately need”.
“I am very committed to this project and I will work with all stakeholders to ensure that we do build this hospital. Yes, it’s complicated, and we must work together to address concerns that some people have expressed,” Harris said.
Over 80,000 people have signed a petition to date calling for the Sisters of Charity to not get ownership of the hospital.
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If they didn’t hide the outcomes to save their own mistakes than it should not have been a problem. Dishonesty from the HSE is the problem.
@Hans Vos: no the problem, as with cervical screening is that NO test is 100% accurate and you will always have false negatives. It’s nobody’s ‘fault’.
@Ciaran Bolger: I agree that no test is 100% accurate. But hiding the results so woman didn’t know their test was suspicious and ultimately ended up in full blown cancers was.
@Ciaran Bolger: false negatives might be nobody’s fault but covering up certainly was somebody’s fault.
@Hans Vos: In a blame culture like ours, informing a patient of a false negative will likely result in a legal action and collapse of the service- thats what they were afraid of , and that is what is going to happen.
The breast screening program was hit with 15 solicitors letters- best course of action would be to stop “look back” audits -to protect the programs.
@paul kelly: So you saying that women who are in the past willingly misleaded can’t have their rights executed?
@Hans Vos:
Of course you can , it just will cost millions.
@paul kelly: Don’t you think that being honest from the beginning could have avoided all the hassle. That’s the problem with the HSE . There are people, and don’t get me wrong not everybody, who think that they are more important than the truth. When it’s going wrong than they blame : 1 Somebody else.
2 Politics
.3 The system.
4 The cost.
And I can get on and on but they never blame them self.
@Hans Vos: No, being honest with a look back audit showing the screen to be a false negative will lead to a substantial payout.
Solicitors are looking at a definite new income stream.
@paul kelly: contrary to you I like to be honest.
@Hans Vos: Oh I believe honesty is the ideal , but it will cost hundreds of millions, the collapse of screning and the deaths of far more women.
@paul kelly:
Make that 16 from Monday next. There will be no collapse of the service that’s scaremongering. I never knew there was a look back service nobody ever mentioned it OR A REVIEW
I really hope that this is not:
A) Another case of our healthcare system failing women
B) People jumping on the bandwagon hoping to make a few euro!
@Jenny Kelleher: I have to disagree with your statement about looking for a few quid… in most cases including the cervical cancer cases the hse deny everything and in fact try to cover up what has happened…. nobody goes to jail, nobody is held responsible… the only retribution these people receive is a pay out… and let me tell you that it’s not an easy decision to make about bringing a case because it is a long and very difficult process.. and is even more so difficult when all you can think is,what if people think I’m doing this just for money !!
@Tommy Byrne: There was no cover up. There were false negative results discovered retrospectively (an inevitable feature of any screening programme), some women were told of this others weren’t due to failure of HSE procedures. There is no suggestion that the women’s outcomes were adversely affected as the prior false negatives were only discovered on review after a diagnosis of cancer had been made. The lawsuits pertain to the false negatives themselves. If a situation emerges where there are payouts for every false negative result then the screening programmes will be driven to bankruptcy as false negatives are an inherent statistical feature of large scale screening programmes.
@Damon16: in the cervical cancer cases it most definitely was a cover up … and who is to say there isn’t something similar happening here ? We don’t know the facts of any of the future cases that may come of this. All we are hearing is one side of the story so far… so to judge people as only in it for a few quid is very wrong
@Tommy Byrne:
Indeed ..very wrong
The medical profession and the Gov need to do a better job explaining to the public the difference between a screening test and a diagnostic test. A screening test such as breast check will invariably have some false negatives results. The Gov need to introduce legislation capping or limiting claims in the context of screening programmes. If they don’t the HSE is the HSE are going to stop running screening tests and or not bring in new screening tests due to legal exposure. This will cost many lives.
Alternatively, push for a national Irish healthcare system that looks after patients to internationally recognised, excellent standards. Adopt a class action suit with one aim; justice and improved medical standards. Don’t force individuals to take individual cases and slog through alone. Too many people end up going abroad – men who need hip replacements badly, and have been waiting in pain on long lists, for example. Don’t inflict symphysiotomy on women while the rest of the world is not crippling their own citizens with decades-old clumsy practices. Don’t sweep the outcomes under the carpet until a few suffering families have to spend all their resources to highlight real and ongoing issues and appeal to higher courts separately until they die and the files are closed.
There are lots of pros and cons to screening. Some medics (and not crackpots) would argue against most kinds of screening and a lot of unnecessary screening takes places privately (ie a money spinner). Total transparency and full disclosures are needed in public and private health care.
Do they not have ambulances to chase?
It’s no good in trying to shift the blame for problem onto women who had smear checks carried out on systemic failure on the HSE full stop.
The circus continues with the legal profession rubbing their hands with glee ,the government have to take responsibility ,this has been kept back from the media to prevent the effects it may have on the referendum .again no accountability ,put your trust in LEO and simon everything will just be fine
My god,these people think the public are fools.
@@mdmak33: Clearly some are.
Where were the tests carried out?
Were they the cheapest option?
@The Irish Bull: tested in Ireland and results read in Ireland. Totally different process to cervical screening.
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