“When it first broke out, I was like ‘Okay, well, the head of the HSE is surely going to do something’, and he didn’t.
And then I looked to Simon Harris. I was thinking ‘Well, surely the Minister for Health is going to step in and do something’. That’s why we give these people powers, and he didn’t do anything.
So then I was like ‘Surely the Taoiseach is going to do something’. And he just seems to be sticking up for them … they’re all hiding there in the Dáil and they don’t see what I see.
The Government need to go. They’re not actually – and I’m not being insulting, it’s genuine – they’re not actually capable of minding us, and that is their job. To make sure that we’re okay.”
Mother-of–five Emma Mhic Mhathúna (top) to Audrey Carville on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland earlier.
‘I’m dying when I don’t need to’ – Emma Mhic Mhathúna speaks after terminal cancer diagnosis (RTÉ)
Previously: Emma’s Story
This is horrific.
I don’t know if it’s better to sack the HSE head or horse-whip him to work day and night to try to resolve this.
He needs to be fired. Excuse after excuse in official Ireland and no accountability. Enough is enough.
O’Brien was parachuted into the role without open advertisement of the position. If proper procedure had been followed here instead of the same old nod and wink nonsense that is Irish politics, could this whole thing have been avoided?
The longer Harris dithers and doesn’t sack him, the more damage it will do
Unfortunately sacking O’Brien will resolve nothing as he’ll just be replaced with a similar of his ilk. There needs to be wholesale reform and thats going to come from tearing the whole thing down and building it back up.
I’ve witnessed the inner workings of the HSE firsthand as a short term Project contractor and the waste, unaccountability and ineptitude I saw in there in 6months shocked me beyond belief.
Its time to bring in European health care heads from Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland. We’ve tried with Irish HSE management types, they suck! Time to try something new.
I’ve heard that in passing from several people. Could you write an article for Broadsheet outlining your experience?
I was sub contracted to do a simple comms/network upgrade in a SoCoDu hospital many years ago. It had been scheduled to commence on a Friday and be completed within 7 days. Went looking for the IT manager on Friday but he had left early to head home to Donegal. I then went to look for the hospital estate manager for access to a particular secure room, but he had also left early, to play golf in Woodenbridge. Lovely course too, can’t blame him. Then I went back on the following Monday morning, no sign of Donegalman, he wasn’t expected in until 12pm. No sign of the estates manager either, he was playing golf in Portmarnock apparently. Never played that one myself but I hear it’s a good course.
did you get the upgrade done during the week?
What’s your handicap?
@lilly, unfortunately the project I worked on and the experiences I had would earmark me quite easily and could be damaging for me on future work but needless to say, at the end of my contract I raised my concerns with management and got a shrug and “oh well”
I believe at one point during a working week a member of management actually told me to slow down and “stop working so hard” or something to that effect (which was actually working at an efficient pace and trying to drive those around me forwards)
Sacking O’Brien will just be a ‘win’ for the opposition at this stage. It won’t solve anything and allow the Dail to slink off having ‘dealt’ with the matter
Get every manager in the HSE who was connected to this up in front of the inquiry, find out who knew what and when – sack the culpable and hand the files on to the Gardai
O’Brien absolutely needs to go but some of the hypocrisy and grandstanding of politicians is hard to take.
It’s a profoundly heartbreaking failing that should never have happened. Human error can never be eradicated and emotional knee jerk reactions calling for heads to roll and jobs to be taken and more families decimated is not the responsible government action. The victims of this most awful and systemic blunder need to be supported and compensated heavily. Then the HSE need to get an independent body with a proven record to implement a new system where this cannot happen again. But please , let’s be sensible…
This country changed a long time ago to us working for the Government instead of them working for us.
So true.
When she said that her baby might never remember her, that just crushed me as I was holding my own baby.
It’s so f-ing wrong, all of this. I want to protest but I accept that I won’t be the one to organise it but I will be there. I’m sorry if that makes me weak.
All managers in the hse should be made reapply for their jobs. See how many would actually get back in.
A disgrace of an organization.
Unaccountability in this country is shameful.
I listened to that lady on the radio this morning.
It was tough to listen to and unimaginable to think what she is going through.
My heart goes out to these poor women. This is appalling and not good enough.
This is terrible behavior from FG, I wonder if I vote for FF at the next GE will that help ?
Not at all. As a former TD said in the dail before to another TD.. F*** you. It got noticed at the time. People in there need to shout louder and more aggressively in there to get noticed. HSE is a money pit that seems to be getting worse not better no matter who is in charge.
It says something about this omnishambles that the interviewer, Audrey Carville, was so obviously affected by Emma’s story.
Feet on the street.
We all should have been out 2 weeks ago when this was first revealed.