Leo shies away from ‘name and shame’ and denies U-turn on open disclosure
THE Taoiseach does not want to name and shame doctors or HSE executives who failed women affected by the controversy – and has denied doing a U-turn on open disclosure.
‘Well I don’t know what you mean by naming and shaming,’ he said. ‘What is proposed in the Scally report is that the women who would like to have another meeting with those doctors should be facilitated in having that, and that’s an opportunity for the doctors to get it right this time, to be open and candid, to be compassionate, and to apologise for not having told the women about the audit when they could have done so.’
While Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar indicated he would be introducing a policy of open disclosure. In 2015 he said: ‘It is my intention to legislate for it in the Health Information Bill, and to make it a legal requirement that there be open disclosure and a duty of candour, which I think is just right.’
Last November, the Government voted against legislation forcing doctors to tell patients about all their mistakes.
Asked about open disclosure this week, Mr Varadkar said: ‘I explained that before, it wasn’t a U-turn, we made a particular set of decisions that we would ensure that it was policy first, and it has been policy for a very long time. And secondly that we would legislate to protect open disclosure on a voluntary basis and we would then legislate... for mandatory open disclosure.’