Health system in crisis - Chaos puts our children in jeopardy

LET’S get the disclaimer dodge out of the way first: the Health Service Executive is responsible for the plight of children awaiting assessment by community care and child protection social workers.

Today’s hot-off-the-press health scandal, where one social work department has more than 400 children in varying states of jeopardy on its books awaiting assessment, has nothing at all to do with Mary Harney.

This means that 400 children who are considered at risk by concerned family members, neighbours, teachers, doctors or nurses are not receiving assessment, support or protection. Simply put, they may be in grave jeopardy, we just don’t know. That our health system — the one with the €255 million deficit — has not been able to establish if they are or not is a scandal that shows a deep contempt for the rights of these young citizens. It also shows contempt for the values of trust, care and security central to the structures that support society.

But take comfort, if the minister was really responsible, this shameful situation would never arise.

In one of the 400 cases, a referral was made in September 2006 — 15 months ago — to a social work department after an eight-year-old boy watched his mother try to hang herself. As yet there has been no follow-up, no assessment of that poor boy.

Unimaginably, it gets worse.

In July 2006 — about 400 days ago — a nine-year-old girl reported to her teacher that her uncle kept trying to kiss her on the lips. The child also reported that her mother’s boyfriend was showing her photos of naked women on his phone.

That girl could be 10 years old by now but she still awaits the attentions and comfort of our health services.

If you read those vignettes in a Charles Dickens or, say, a Frank McCourt misery fest, you’d say the melodrama was a bit over the top, that the depictions were overstated, too obvious, that they lacked credibility.

Sadly, because of the anarchy in our health service, we have to bow our heads and acknowledge that they represent the truth in Ireland, at Christmas in 2007.

They are not the only health service scandals demanding your attention but in an effort to try to foster the spirit of generosity expected during this festive season, let’s confine ourselves to issues raised yesterday.

No need to dig up all the scandals of the last year, all the embarrassing ones that have nothing at all to do with the minister.

Though more an indicative, rather than a national scandal, the decision by Nenagh Hospital to close its elderly care unit for the Christmas and new year period to facilitate staff holidays adds to the argument that the HSE has lost the plot completely.

Though Dickens and McCourt are masters of misery they often softened their work with flashes of humour, possibly to all the better show the desperation of their central characters.

Not to be outdone, the HSE is to blame for another sad, little sideshow of incompetence.

In November, with the kind of fanfare usually seen at a Hello wedding, the minister announced the Civil Registration Act 2004, which allows couples to marry in venues other than register offices. The act was passed by the Oireachtas more than three-and-a-half years ago.

However, due to the failure of the HSE to fulfil its statutory function of certification, it is impossible for any couple in Dublin, Kildare or Wicklow to celebrate a civil marriage anywhere other than a register office. Beggars belief really. Not so long ago the question was “how can the minister stay in office?”

If the farce continues at this cracking pace, that question will soon become “how can she sleep at night?”