Politicians and patients' groups have reacted sharply to revelations that the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive (HSE) failed to act on serious concerns about breast cancer services at Barringtons' Hospital in Limerick.
The Irish Timesreported on Saturday that the department was aware of seven separate issues concerning the quality of breast cancer services at the private hospital, some 19 months before it took action to address these concerns.
In a letter dated January 16th, 2006, Paul Barron, assistant secretary of the department, asked the HSE to examine specific issues at Barringtons that had been brought to the department's attention. The letter appeared to contradict comments by Minister for Health Mary Harney, that detailed concerns about the hospital were not forthcoming "until the start of August this year".
Dr James Reilly, Fine Gael spokesman on health said yesterday: "It is very clear that the Minister either misled us yet again or else is not on top of her brief and in touch with her department. There should be somebody we have faith in that will regulate all hospitals, both public and private," he said.
Labour spokeswoman on health, Jan O'Sullivan, said: "The correspondence shows there is a failure to take responsibility for health matters."
Referring to the detailed concerns outlined by Mr Barron, including the fact that mastectomies were carried out on a day case basis, and that breast surgery was performed without prior X-ray, Ms O'Sullivan said: "It is not acceptable that these concerns were passed on belatedly to the HSE. Why have a Department of Health if it is not going to take responsibility for the health service?" She called on Ms Harney to state unequivocally who is responsible for the safety and quality of health services in the Republic.
Janette Byrne of Patients Together said there was now "total mistrust" in the HSE, the department and the health sector generally. "People are now so afraid of the health system. The Patients Charter and patient rights are not worth the paper they are written on.
"Nineteen months is a very long time in a cancer diagnosis. Time is so important and there is a possibility of unnecessary deaths [ of women with breast cancer] in that period of time," Ms Byrne said.
The chairwoman of the breast cancer advocacy group, Europa Donna Ireland, Christine Murphy-Whyte, said: "It is extraordinarily disheartening for women to read about this delay."
Calling for breast cancer treatment centres to be licensed and accredited, she said: "The issue of public versus private should not arise in terms of how it [ the health sector] is regulated".
John McCormack, chief executive of the Irish Cancer Society, said he saw no reason why the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) could not have a role in regulating private medicine, and he called on private health insurance companies to only fund centres that operated to audited standards in the future.
A spokesman for the HSE said in response to the reported correspondence between it and the department concerning Barringtons that it had no remit over private hospitals.
A spokesman for Ms Harney said last night: "The Department of Health, as soon as it was given specific information through HIQA, moved very quickly and took up the issue with the Medical Council."