Health service’s ‘cult of secrecy’ is corrosive

IRELAND’S health service, which costs us one-in-three of our tax euros, has a deplorable record of upholding the people’s right to know. At times senior officials atop the health pyramid appear determined that people learn nothing at all. All of this is compounded by a definite air of defeatism within our political system, which too often tells us that the problems facing the health service will somehow always be with us; that there is a problem for every solution.

Such a view is sustained by people being unduly supine about the issue. It is time ordinary citizens shouted “stop” and demanded better from this most vital of services.

The story of Vicky Phelan is a mixture of extraordinary courage and heartbreak. People all across the country most likely have someone in their lives afflicted with some form of cancer.

Tragically, people die of cancer every day in Ireland. But to find that someone is at risk of needlessly dying of cancer really is beyond the limit of all that is reasonable.

Many people within our health services work hard and deliver good service to tens of thousands of people every day. But there are alarming gaps in the service and some apparently intractable problems which too many of us fear are beyond remedy.

Ms Phelan’s story has shown rather unsavoury sides to our health service. The first impulse is to circle the wagons and defend the service above the ordinary citizens’ rights. There is also a corrosive cult of secrecy. In 2014 a review discovered that Ms Phelan had been given a false negative result to a smear test for cervical cancer. But Ms Phelan was only told in 2017.

In recent days information has emerged in a slow and partial way. None of this is acceptable.