Patient complaint led to HSE apology
She was speaking after the release of reports into four successfully resolved complaints in the health and social protection areas. She said the publications help to increase awareness of the wide-ranging work of her office, which is impartial.
The four cases looked at were:
* A woman badly treated in a HSE Dublin mental health out-patient clinic got an apology and the HSE undertook to improve staff training and acknowledges failure to address her concerns fully, in a timely way.
* The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation apologised for stalling a redundancy claim payment for over two years and made an ex-gratia payment to compensate.
* A decision by the department that a child benefit applicant failed to satisfy habitual residency requirement was overturned and arrears of €3,942 were paid.
* A clerical error by a nursing home drove a HSE decision to refuse to pay nursing home subvention for a recovering stroke patient; the decision was reversed and an ex-gratia payment of €10,670 was made.
Ms O’Reilly said it was important that in two cases complainants got an apology and remedial action, and in the other two, decisions of public bodies were reversed after forensic examination by her office of the facts and records.
“The constructive engagement with my office by the HSE and the two government departments involved is to be welcomed,” she said. “It also reflects their commitment to better standards of public service for their customers and their willingness, following engagement with my office, to look again with an open mind at decisions or inactions which adversely impacted on people.”
She said the reports will be of interest to the general public as well as representatives and organisations who provide advice, support or advocacy services to people having trouble in their dealings with public bodies.
* The case reports can be viewed at ombudsman.gov.ie.
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