IRELAND
HSE ‘would be easier to run’ without child care
The head of the Health Service Executive (HSE) has indicated that the organisation would be easier to run if a separate body was tasked with looking after services for children in care.
In a wide-ranging interview in today’s Irish Examiner, Professor Brendan Drumm said the "breadth of responsibility" shouldered by the HSE was enormous and it would be easier to run "if areas like child care were elsewhere". However, he said the decision to separate functions was not one he could make at this stage. He said services for children in care were a "very, very high risk area to manage" and that "the more high risk issues you expose, the more the organisation is subject to criticism".
Mr Drumm said difficulties were compounded by the fact that in order to monitor adherence to child care regulations, the HSE is actually having to withdraw social workers from primary care teams, "where their job is to actually work with families so the children don’t end up in care or in foster care".
"Now we are finding ourselves in a situation of having to withdraw people from frontline services to ensure that we actually fulfil regulations," he said.
The outgoing HSE head, whose term as chief executive ends in August, said he was amazed by the number of commentators in the media who had suggested the HSE was engaged in a cover-up in relation to the deaths of children in care and that it raised questions "as to how fairly the HSE is treated in some of those discussions". In addition, he said he expected the number of such deaths to "grow and grow" and he cautioned against "creating a league table when it comes to the deaths of children".
Children’s Minister Barry Andrews yesterday announced the appointment of a ‘child czar’ which he claimed would be the missing piece in the jigsaw of child protection services.
However, Prof Drumm said the level of staffing needed for child protection going forward was "huge" and that Ireland was "nowhere near the level of staffing that could provide the level of service that you would want to provide to absolutely minimise the risk".
He also defended the HSE’s record of transparency. "Nobody’s been more transparent than this organisation. We’ve put out our figures and facts more than any health care system in the world, so it’s almost comical to talk about us not being transparent."
Prof Drumm, who has headed up the HSE since August 2005, said he had "enjoyed" the challenge and that he didn’t "live in a world where I need people to paint my halo". He said: "I came to this to try to make a difference and to create a sustainable Irish health care system." He also said he believed the time was right for a review of what the HSE has achieved to date.
"I think it would be very reasonable now to ask that an independent review of this organisation… would be carried out to say, ‘Where were we five years ago? Where are we now? Are we on the right track?’, so that the people who work in this organisation can receive some confirmation or not as to whether their efforts have been worthwhile."
Catherine Shanahan
10 June 2010
http://www.irishexaminer.com/home/hse-would-be-easier-to-run-without-child-care-122091.html
