Pressure grows on HSE chief as smear case mum calls on him to go
THERE was growing pressure on HSE chief Tony O’Brien last night as the woman whose case shone a light on the CervicalCheck scandal called for his resignation.
HSE leader Tony O’Brien was forthright in his own defence at a press conference yesterday, even criticising the Health Minister for saying last week he had no confidence in CervicalCheck.
Mr O’Brien yesterday responded to Simon Harris’s commentary on the escalating CervicalCheck scandal on TV last Friday evening.
‘I had concerns about what was emerging,’ Mr O’Brien said yesterday. ‘But I certainly wouldn’t have gone on the Six One News and expressed a lack of confidence.’
However, Vicky Phelan went on the Ray D’Arcy Show on RTÉ Radio 1 yesterday and said Mr O’Brien needed to ‘consider his position’.
She said he was a key decisionmaker who had approved the outsourcing of Irish smear screening to the United States.
And she said a previous apology by Mr O’Brien ‘no longer applies,’ because it had been discovered that 17 women had already died following the blunder.
Officials from CervicalCheck, the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive are expected to appear before an Oireachtas health committee next week to answer questions on the controversy.
And last night Sinn Féin demanded that Mr O’Brien appear before the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee, saying he had ‘serious questions to answer’.
TD Louise O’Reilly said: ‘There has to be accountability for this major scandal. That includes finding out who was responsible for the July 2016 circular that gave doctors room to inform or not to inform women of misdiagnoses.
‘We need to get to the bottom of why Irish smear tests were outsourced to an outside company despite concerns being raised at the time by a [one-time] member of the National Cervical Screening Programme.’
The growing pressure on Mr O’Brien was exemplified when Mrs Phelan called on him to consider his position. Speaking on the Ray D’Arcy Show, she said: ‘What I don’t want to see is an inquiry or a tribunal that is going to take years. The main issue I have is, if they do a type of inquiry where there is a blanket ban on reporting until it is all resolved, that is going to work in their favour. Then it will just quietly go away – and I 100% do not want to see that happen.
‘There are questions I would like asked in this inquiry or tribunal as to why my case was fought so vigorously. The bottom line to me is that people in office obviously knew, and they are all quaking in their boots now because their positions are coming into question.’
And she added: ‘There is Tony O’Brien – he was involved in outsourcing.’
Asked by the Irish Daily Mail after he spoke to Mrs Phelan last night whether he shared her view that Mr O’Brien should step down instead of going as scheduled in the summer, Mr Harris avoided the question while praising the motherof-two. He said; ‘I very much appreciate her talking to me. She has done the State a huge amount of service. I wouldn’t know, as Health Minister, some of what I know if it wasn’t for Vicky Phelan’s courage.’
And Mr Harris last night backed Mr O’Brien, saying: ‘I absolutely have confidence in the director general of the HSE. I think he’s doing a very good job in very difficult circumstances.’ In March, the HSE boss said he would leave his €186,000-a-year position this summer after six years.
Despite this, Mr Harris and the HSE boss appeared to be at odds over Mr Harris’s criticism of former CervicalCheck boss Gráinne Frannelly, who announced at the weekend that she would stand down. Mr O’Brien told a news conference yesterday: ‘I had concerns about what was emerging but I certainly
His apology ‘no longer applies’
wouldn’t have gone on the Six One news and expressed a lack of confidence.’
Mr Harris hit back, saying: ‘I didn’t have confidence, and I didn’t think it would make sense to tell anything other than the truth.
‘How could you have had confidence when letters were emerging that a doctor who was heading up CervicalCheck was writing to others saying that you don’t have to tell the patient?’
Mr Harris added: ‘How could I express confidence in that? I am very satisfied that the women of Ireland couldn’t have confidence in relation to that. I have been very upfront on this.’
Asked how Mrs Phelan’s case could have made it to the High Court without his being aware, Mr O’Brien said that cases are defended by another agency, the State Claims Agency. ‘The HSE does not instruct legal strategy or direct lawyers,’ he said. ‘That’s why I wasn’t aware of these circumstances.’
Asked when he was told about Mrs Phelan’s case, Mr O’Brien replied: ‘I was not told. I read about it on the website of RTÉ.’
Asked if he had overseen the policy that doctors were not compelled to tell patients of misreading of scans, Mr O’Brien said: ‘I was not aware of that document.’