HSE official ‘flabbergasted’ by dump find

A SENIOR Health Service Executive official has admitted he was “flabbergasted” by the discovery of thousands of patients’ medical notes dumped at a disused landfill and confirmed further excavations are being carried out in the area to see if there are more.

Gerry O’Dwyer, networks manager for the Southern Hospitals’ Group, said since the find in Glounthaune on April 30, HSE staff had been trawling through the documents.

However, he claimed despite the fact that thousands of medical notes were found, a mere 15 sets have so far been classified as complete and legible files.

“To date, partial documents and incomplete pieces of data have been catalogued as far as possible by health records staff. The vast majority of these are A&E cards and partial records, such as incomplete pages from notes,” said Mr O’Dwyer.

“At present it appears that there are only 15 fully legible sets of notes. It needs to be borne in mind that many of these documents were in very poor condition, are earth soiled and very decomposed. Therefore, much of the documentation is illegible, including the names and contact addresses for patients,” the senior health official added.

Mr O’Dwyer said the HSE was trying to find out why these records were “inappropriately disposed of.”

As part of the investigation, current and former hospital staff are also been interviewed.

Cork County Council, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Data Protections Commission are also involved in the investigation.

The medical notes, came from Cork Regional Hospital (now CUH) and St Finbarr’s Hospital. They date back to the 1970s and 1980s.

They were discovered at a disused landfill site which was being reclaimed along the route of the Cork-Midleton railway line. The line is currently under construction and HSE officials are continuing to monitor digging.

Mr O’Dwyer said that to date 120 calls from worried former patients have been received on the hotline the HSE set up after the discovery. “Whilst (medical record) processes are meticulous and traceable nowadays with the aid of technology, prior to the use of computers, data was recorded manually in many different areas and tracing records, invoices etc can be extremely difficult,” Mr O’Dwyer added.

He said the HSE was still working to see if there are any more files buried in the adjoining area, and this could take several weeks.

Councillor Tim Lombard (FG) wanted to know how the files got into a refuse dump which was closed in the early 1990s.

Mr O’Dwyer said that was still under investigation. “We’re flabbergasted as to how those files got there,” he replied.