Catherine Connolly TD told the Dáil yesterday that it is unacceptable that the HSE has shown no desire to learn from its mistakes, given that taxpayers’ money is used for flawed internal investigations.
She said ‘we cannot trust institutions’ and that on every occasion that the HSE in Galway faced a crisis, their reaction was to ‘close ranks’.
“One thing I have learned in my professional life and on a human level is that institutions simply cannot be trusted. No institution can be trusted,” she said. “If he looks at the record of the HSE in Galway city, the Minister will see that, on every single occasion on which there was crisis, the reaction was to close ranks in a most effective manner.”
She also referred to Savita’s death to prove the HSE’s inability to solve crises.
“The unfortunate case of Savita Halappanavar only came to light because of the persistence of a journalist. If that tells us anything it is that we cannot trust institutions.
“Since then there have been a number of other inquiries in Galway, which I will not go into, but in which I have some personal involvement.
“From my personal experience I see absolutely no commitment from the HSE or from institutions in general to learn from mistakes, to acknowledge them and to actively involve the patient or the patient’s family.
“I find this particularly unacceptable given that, in the end, a lot more of taxpayers’ money is spent on inadequate internal investigations, inadequate external investigations, investigations which pretend to be independent and, finally, the appointment of independent people,” Ms Connoly added.
