Madam, – I refer to Aidan Waterstone’s response (May 26th) to coverage of the tragic death of Daniel McAnaspie (Weekend Review, May 22nd), and Mr Waterstone’s counter-portrayal of the services that care for our most vulnerable children. Mr Waterstone seems to be taken with the notion that operationally all is well and that services are readily available and transparent.
It reinforces the sense that the typical response of the HSE to any perceived criticism is to control information tightly, stymie any debate and gloss over real gaps in practice and services. It must be frustrating for people who genuinely care about our systems to be met with obfuscation of this nature that flies in the face of very real problems.
Anyone in the HSE who thinks it is acceptable not to be fully briefed on the deaths of children in care should be removed from office.
Anyone in the HSE who thinks it is acceptable not to immediately know the numbers of children who died in care should never have been in the office in the first place.
I see Mr Waterstone unwittingly draws Hiqa, the courts and guardians ad litem into his robust defence of the high standards of care children receive under the HSE. I would be interested to hear the views of these independent organisations who, by way of inference, have been responsible for checks and balances in the child care system and, by the absence of evidence to the contrary, must be satisfied with the HSE performance. Mr Waterstone conveniently omits to mention the recent Ombudsman for Children’s report which was quite damning of the HSE’s performance regarding child protection services.
Is it too much to ask that a serious, warts-and-all, debate can take place?
It is fitting that the complexities inherent in protecting and caring for children who are in dire circumstances should be to the forefront. Equally, it is important to point out what works well. But for a HSE official to make no acknowledgment of the problems within its system is counter-productive and serves to further distance us from the collective humanity that is required to make services meaningful and effective for young people.
We all have a role to play, but the HSE stills seems to have to grasp its role! – Yours, etc,