Former senator to head Tallaght Hospital inquiry
The HSE has confirmed that Dr Maurice Hayes, a senior civil servant in the North who served as an independent senator in the Seanad between 1997 and 2007, has accepted the post.
Dr Hayes has spent most of his working life in the Department of Health and Social Services, the Northern Ireland Ombudsman, and as head of civil service human resources.
The first chair of the North’s Community Relations Commission and a member of the Human Rights Commission, Dr Hayes was also a member of the Patten Commission on policing in the North, which led to the establishment of a police ombudsman in the region.
Between 1997 and 2007 he served as an independent senator after being appointed by then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and was named Irish European Person of the Year in 2003.
His health work includes a review of acute hospital services in the North.
Dr Hayes will be supported in his three-month investigation into the Tallaght Hospital scandal by Patricia Gordon, who will work as the review’s project director.
Ms Gordon, head of the Multiple Sclerosis Society in the North, was chief executive of the south and east Belfast NHS Trust between 2003 and 2007, and the Mater Hospital in Dublin between 1995 and 2003.
She is also a member of the tax tribunal and a non-executive member of the Northern Ireland Prison Service board.
Both Dr Hayes and Ms Gordon will be supported in their investigations by a yet to be confirmed three-person steering committee involving a GP, a patient representative and a radiologist.
While the terms of reference of the review into why 57,921 X-rays were not properly examined and why thousands of GP referral letters were left unopened will not be known until next week, the review will be completed in three months.
Patient organisation the Tallaght Hospital Action Group (THAG) said those in charge must be allowed to conduct the investigation without any interference.
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