Handling of SARS threat ‘lamentable’

THOSE charged with protecting the nation from the SARS threat faced scathing criticism yesterday as they briefed the Oireachtas Health Committee on their actions.

Criticising the lack of control to prevent SARS entering Ireland, Labour’s Liz McManus drew a comparison with the foot-and-mouth epidemic in 2001 and raised concerns over the influx of travellers during the Special Olympics.

“During foot and mouth, if the transport of hundreds of sheep from Cumbria was permitted there would be uproar, yet we do not have adequate controls in place,” Ms McManus said.

She called the Government’s handling of the situation lamentable.

“There really needs to be some honesty here about how serious that incident was. It would be better if an admission was clear that the system failure in that case was extremely grave,” said Ms McManus.

There had been no clear strategy, no clear information and no clear guidelines to health workers, he said.

Yesterday’s briefing was the first time since the beginning of the SARS scare last month that those directly responsible for directing the Government’s response to the disease assembled to explain their actions.

The Government’s chief medical officer, Dr Jim Kiely; National Disease Surveillance Centre boss; Dr Darina O’ Flanagan, and Eastern Regional Health Authority chief executive Michael Lyons all defended their response to the problem.

Fine Gael health spokesperson Olivia Mitchell accused the health officials of gross ineptitude. “Into that cauldron of ineptitude, the rumour, panic and fear grew in the entire community,” she said. “People like government to protect them and in this case there was no protection.”

Department of Health secretary general Michael Kelly, defending the actions of those responsible for implementing the Government’s SARS strategy, said: “I would stand completely behind the performance of the people who have worked hard on this since it first became known.”