The Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, has published details of four complaints which her office successfully resolved last year in order to highlight the role her office plays in resolving problems consumers have with State-run organisations.
In one of the cases, in which a woman was “badly treated” at a mental health out-patient clinic in Dublin, the Ombudsman was able to extract an apology from the HSE and a commitment to improve staff training while in two other cases the office secured financial compensation from people who had lodged complaints.
One woman complained to the Ombudsman after she was left waiting hours to see a doctor at a Dublin clinic. When she was eventually seen she alleged the doctor was “aggressive” and “very annoyed” and that they had subsequently telephoned her home and divulged medical information about her condition to her mother.
She had complained to the HSE but received no response. When contacted by the Ombudsman, the HSE apologised and said it would undertake “to improve staff training”. It acknowledged failure to address her concerns fully and in a timely way.
The same body was also made to pay a nursing home subvention for recovering stroke patient which it initially refused to do because of a clerical error by one of its staff.
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, meanwhile, had to apologise to a former employee over two years stalled redundancy claim payment and made an ex-gratia payment to compensate.
A decision by the Department of Social Protection that a woman applicant for child benefit failed to satisfy habitual residency requirement was overturned and arrears of €3,942 paid to the applicant.
The Ombudsman periodically selects from the thousands of complaints made to her every year, a small number with good outcomes for the people involved and publicises them on the Ombudsman website.
This is done to increase the public visibility and awareness of the wide-ranging work of her Office and how the free, impartial and independent service provided can help people to put a wrong right.
“For the complainants involved it is not simply the case that their grievances were rigorously pursued and their complaints were upheld, but that in two cases my complainants got an apology and remedial action, and in the other two, decisions of the public bodies were reversed following forensic examination of the facts and records by my Office,” the Ms O ‘Reilly said.
“The constructive engagement with my Office by the HSE and the two Government Departments involved is to be welcomed. It also reflects their commitment to better standards of public service for their customers and their willingness, following engagement with my Office, to look again with an open mind at decisions or inactions which adversely impacted on people,” she said.
