The Minister for Health Leo Varadkar has heavily criticised the handling of cases involving the parents of babies who died at the Midlands hospital in Portlaoise.
Mr Varadkar believes that the tragic deaths of the babies were not dealt with honestly by management and staff at the hospital. Mr Varadkar also believes that lessons must be learned from the mistreatment of those attending the hospital which was outlined in a critical watchdog report, the Health Minister also stressed that those lessons must be applied to all healthcare facilities across the country.
The news comes after the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) issued a report outlining details of how patients were mistreated by staff and warned of poor safety conditions at the maternity unit in the Midlands hospital earlier this month. Mr Varadkar said a failure to provide parents full information about the deaths of their children was “extremely worrying”. He also stressed the importance of doctors feeling able to be open and honest about their mistakes.
The minister made his comments whilst he was speaking on RTÉ’s This Week programme. Mr Varadkar said although the HSE heavily disputed some of the Hiqa findings, both he and his department accepted all of the watchdog’s recommendations.
Mr Varadkar told the program: “You will probably find similar experiences across the country in lots of other hospitals too where people … they were handled with a lack of honesty,” “Again that’s why we need to apply what we are learning from Portlaoise across the board. Mr Varadkar added: “So one of the things I will be doing is bringing in legislation to protect open disclosure to make sure doctors, health professionals are in a position to give information up front to people.”