Irish Examiner view: The HSE is failing many young patients

That our medical services are so obviously failing so many young people in particular, is something the Government is going to have to radically address

In New York on Sunday, Tánaiste Micheál Martin told our political editor, Elaine Loughlin, about hospital consultants being “slow” to refer seriously ill children to appropriate medical centres of excellence. Picture: Jonathan Brady/PA

Frustration with the apparent inability of the HSE to deal with an array of issues is widespread and understandable, but the ongoing failures of the HSE with regard to children and their healthcare is possibly the single most concerning issue to have come to light.

Ongoing failures with the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (Camhs), highlighted last month in a damning report by inspector of mental health services Susan Finnerty, have been shown to be pervasive across-the-board with failures of management, organisation, and governance.

Dr Finnerty clearly illustrated failures of HSE managers to implement basic leadership and oversight infrastructure which have led to hundreds of children getting “lost” in a system which is supposed to care for them and not ignore them.

The appalling consequences of these Camhs failures are widely known, especially to families whose children have fallen through the cracks of a system in which, says Children’s Ombudsman Niall Muldoon, too many agencies “do not and apparently will not work together to ensure the best interests of the children they are charged to care for”.

There are similar concerns for those children living for years in constant and crippling pain as they wait for scoliosis treatment, and yesterday it emerged that 19 children had suffered significant complications after spinal surgery in which, in some cases, unauthorised devices were used in operations.

In New York on Sunday, Tánaiste Micheál Martin told our political editor, Elaine Loughlin, about hospital consultants being “slow” to refer seriously ill children to appropriate medical centres of excellence.

Following on from that, the figures announced yesterday by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation that more than 1,000 children were without a hospital bed this month alone were shocking, even taking into account this country’s already chaotic emergency department history.

That our medical services are so obviously failing so many, and so many young people in particular, is something the Government is going to have to radically address with investment in services, or risk accusations of being blind to the issues.

A better Brexit deal for Ireland 

Speaking about the reality of the Brexit morass and its potentially toxic legacy for generations of his country’s people, British Labour leader Keir Starmer might finally have hit the right electoral button which could propel his party to a long-awaited return to power in the UK.

Starmer’s reluctance to publicly voice his well-known private abhorrence of Britain’s departure from the EU has been a necessary tool in persuading voters he represents a better option for them than anything the Tories can offer.

That might seem an easy task given the manner in which the governing party has covered itself in the glory of a shrinking economy, an appalling immigration policy, environmental negligence, and an ability to party on down nonetheless.

But the voters were the ones who swallowed whole the Tory vision of Brexit and damming them as idiots for doing so is not going to win any election. Until now, the Labour leader has generally refrained from any debate on Europe, other than a standard “we will not renege on the will of the people” response.

That changed in recent days when Starmer committed to a major rewrite of Britain’s Brexit deal with the EU if elected.

He insisted he wanted a closer trading relationship with Brussels when the agreement reached by then prime minister Boris Johnson comes up for review in 2025.

Although many Brexiteers fear their work will be unravelled by a Labour government secretly intent on rejoining the bloc, Starmer has thus far publicly resisted such a notion.

But the fact that he feels emboldened to state he wants closer links to the EU suggests that the penny may, finally, be dropping and that recognition can only be encouraging when it comes to rebuilding our relationship with Britain.

Calling it out

‘Shrinkflation’ might be a new word in our ever-expanding lexicon, but it is becoming an increasingly pertinent one when dealing with consumer suppliers who, yet again, have found a new ways of profiting at the expense of customers.

The word has come into being to describe the phenomenon whereby manufacturers are reducing the size of their products, while keeping them at the same price or even increasing their cost to consumers.

One French supermarket giant, Carrefour, has decided enough is enough and decided to try and shame manufacturers such as PepsiCo, Unilever, and Nestlé from indulging in the practice. It has therefore slapped very visible price warnings on 26 products which declare: “This product has seen its volume or weight fall and the effective price from the supplier rise.”

Carrefour is trying to rally consumer support as retailers embark on negotiations with manufacturers on pricing into the future, which are set to be concluded by October 15.

The chain is arming itself with plenty of ammunition and highlighting to its customers exactly what the goods suppliers are at — extracting more profit from less product.

A bottle of Lipton’s Iced Tea (made by PepsiCo) has shrunk to 1.25 litres from 1.5 litres. Infant formula produced by Nestlé has shrunk from 900g to 830g, while an ice cream cake made by Unilever went from 350g to 320g.

The French retailer says it is ‘stigmatising’ certain products in an attempt to force manufacturers to rethink their strategies. Perhaps Irish retailers might find it helpful if they too intervened on behalf of their customers.