Embarrassment for HSE... again
Sexual health website offered links for ‘casual sex’ and ‘affairs’... until Mail pointed out error
A HSE sexual health information campaign published and distributed almost 25,000 pamphlets and leaflets advertising a website that doesn’t exist.
Instead of offering advice, the HSE site Sexualwellbeing.ie contained links offering ‘casual sex’ hook-ups, ‘adult affairs’ and ‘adult cam sex’.
And after the Irish Daily Mail alerted the health authority to the blunder, the site had to be redirected to the generic HSE website
The domain name was registered by the HSE in 2016, but a proper website was never built and the holding page began automatically generating links to other websites based on similar topics.
But even though Sexualwellbeing.ie was never constructed, the HSE shelled out €4,500 to publish 24,870 leaflets advertising the website.
The leaflets were distributed in clinics all over the country. The mistake has since been rectified and Sexualwellbeing. ie now leads to a full HSE site about safe sex. Will St Ledger, a spokesman for HIV activist group Act Up Dublin, blasted the mix-up as ‘farcical’ and said it was ‘endemic of the neglect and complacency’ of Government agencies in tackling matters of sexual health.
Among those printed were six information pamphlets about the preventative HIV drug PrEP, all bearing the non-existent website.
The HSE has also admitted to advertising the dud website in connection with STI and ART (antiretroviral therapy) information drives.
However the health executive denied using it in campaigns connected with the HPV vaccine, despite the Mail having obtained a HSE poster bearing the web address that encourages MSM (men who have sex with men) under the age of 26 to get the inoculation.
New diagnoses of HIV have been steadily increasing in Ireland since 2011 and hit record highs in 2016, with 512 cases reported. This is the highest figure since records began, but 2018 is on course to become the third consecutive year where new diagnoses have surpassed the 500 mark.
Mr St Ledger said: ‘To allow such an important source of health information to just get lost is hard to understand. How many times have they used that website in their literature or in any of their online resources?
‘The poster for the HPV vaccine for MSM under the age of 26 has been up in clinics since about May of last year, that’s how long I’ve seen them for.’
He added: ‘It’s endemic of the neglect and complacency that state organisations and the Government have when it comes to tackling HIV cases in Ireland. You might think it’s a small part of it, but it’s endemic of the complacency and that has to change.’
Mr St Ledger pointed to Act Up’s own information website – getprep.online – which is visited by around 500 users a month as evidence of the need for a Government website that provides practical information on sexual health.
‘The reason we have organisations like Act Up Dublin, who are keeping the pressure on and tackling this issue, is because it’s not being taken seriously at Government and at state agency level,’ he said.
‘As long as that negligence continues, we’re going to see the numbers of diagnoses going up again.’
A HSE spokeswoman said of the Sexualwellbeing.ie embarrassment: ‘On registration of a domain name the internet service provider directs the name to a default holding page until that domain is directed to another location.
‘This page may include automatically generated links to other sites on similar topics. The page was clearly identified as a holding page and carried the internet service provider corporate identity.
She added: ‘A small number of printed information leaflets, in relation to ART, HIV preexposure prophylaxis and STIs were printed with the web address on them in advance of the launch of the site and used in outreach and sexual health clinics.’
It said that the website had now been built and provides the correct information.
‘It’s not being taken seriously’