CRECHE BOSS AND ADMIN WORKERS GOT BEACON JABS
36 people got spare vaccines over two days
OFFICE staff working at the HQ of a leading crèche chain 6km from the private Beacon Hospital – including the chain’s CEO – were vaccinated ahead of vulnerable patients in the hospital, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal. The latest revelation in the controversy
at the Beacon Hospital is that the administrative staff at Park Academy Childcare, who have no direct childcare role, travelled to the Beacon Hospital to be vaccinated outside of the strict HSE sequencing protocol at the end of February and start of March.
The company confirmed to the MoS last night that 36 staff were inoculated on two separate occasions between February 25 and early March.
These new revelations come as Health Minister Stephen Donnelly announced yesterday that vaccinations would stop at the Beacon Hospital following a series of exposés by the Mail in the past two days.
On Friday, our sister newspaper, the Irish Daily Mail, revealed that 20 excess doses of the vaccine were given to staff at St Gerard’s private school in Bray, 13km away.
The children of Michael Cullen, CEO of the Beacon Hospital, are pupils at the school that reportedly charges fees of €7,420. The Mail further revealed yesterdy that Mr Cullen personally telephoned the school to offer the vaccinations to teachers and staff there.
The MoS can now reveal that senior figures at the Beacon Hospital were considering withdrawing from the vaccination programme as early as Thursday night, hours before the first story broke.
The Beacon had been running the 10-booth clinic for free, with vaccinators working on their days off.
They inoculated more than 9,000 frontline healthcare workers before the service was halted.
The announcement comes following 48 hours of chaos in the State’s pandemic response that involved angry pharmacists with no appointments turned away from a vaccination centre in Cork and three people abscond from a mandatory quarantine hotel in Dublin after going for a walk.
‘These workers deliver an essential service to frontline workers’
Problems with the IT booking system for frontline healthcare workers’ jabs have also emerged, following an MoS investigation in which our reporter received a vaccine appointment by falsely posing as a healthcare worker on the HSE’s vaccination portal.
Crucially the text message confirming the appointment – which the MoS subsequently cancelled – did not ask for work ID to be brought along, leaving the robustness of the validation process open to question.
But it is the fresh revelations on the Beacon Hospital scandal that will further infuriate a weary public.
Two whistleblowers at the Park Academy contacted the MoS over what they saw as a deliberate abuse of power by the hospital which vaccinated senior crèche staff being out of turn.
One of the whistleblowers said it mirrored the earlier exposé by the Mail.
‘This is exactly the same as St Gerard’s getting the vaccines over people in genuine need,’ they said.
The HSE has strict protocols in place about how excess doses at the end of the day are to be used, with the rules stating that they go to those people next in line on the waiting list for the jab, who can get to the vaccination centre at short notice.
The Park Academy has eight facilities across Dublin and Wicklow. Latest filings with the Company Registration Office show the company made profits of €426,518 in 2019 and employed 221 staff.
Two of the crèches are located beside the Beacon Hospital, at Beacon Court and Beacon South Quarter, and are popular with staff at the hospital who receive a slight discount.
It was reported earlier this week that some staff at these crèches were vaccinated. In response to the reports that crèche workers, who care for children of staff at the Beacon Hospital, received vaccines, the hospital told the Irish Independent: ‘In keeping with the zerowastage policy, vaccines were administered to childcare providers located on the Beacon Medical Campus. These workers deliver an essential service to frontline workers.’
This statement makes it appear that it is child-facing crèche workers only who were given vaccines. However, the MoS can confirm that some office staff at their Cabinteely headquarters made the 6km journey to the Sandyford hospital to be vaccinated after being offered the jab by the Beacon. It is understood that the crèche chain CEO Mary McGivney was among those staff vaccinated.
Asked about this fresh controversy, the Beacon Hospital issued a ‘no comment’ to the MoS last night – despite having commented to other media.
Last night, a spokesperson for The Park Academy told the MoS: ‘Given the proximity of our crèches to the local vaccination centre, our staff were contacted twice at short notice to be informed of available appointments, due to the failure of people to attend to take their vaccines. We were notified on 25th February to be at the vaccination centre and were given an hour’s notice, as otherwise the vaccine would expire.
‘This resulted in nine staff being vaccinated.
‘In early March we again were contacted by the vaccination centre at short notice, resulting in 27 staff who were vaccinated, in line with best practice. This included those managers and staff who work between various bubbles being vaccinated to avoid cross-infection.’
The week’s revelations sparked anger across the country, with those waiting to be vaccinated and their loved ones expressing their upset.
Virgin Media TV anchor Anna Daly posted on Twitter on Friday that her father, who is receiving cancer treatment at the Beacon, has
‘This is exactly the same as St Gerard’s’
yet to be told when he was to be vaccinated.
‘My Dad, 78, is a cancer patient in the Beacon and there’s still no sign of a vaccine for him yet,’ she wrote.
On Friday, the HSE said it was appointing a senior official to ‘immediately examine what happened and make recommendations regarding any actions or changes required’.
Sinn Féin TD for Wicklow, John Brady, said the revelations showed the need for a ‘full investigation’ insisting there was a ‘clear abuse of power’ in deciding who was vaccinated.
Widespread political condemnation of the Beacon Hospital continued yesterday as politicians were flooded with calls and emails from angry constituents.
A spokesman for Taoiseach Micheál Martin called yesterday for Mr Cullen to be ‘held accountable for his actions by the board of the Beacon Hospital’.
‘The vaccines belong to the Irish people. There are clear rules and guidelines in relation to their administration. These prioritise the most vulnerable and frontline healthcare workers. There are specific rules relating to the allocation of surplus vaccines at the end of a day’s administration.
‘Clearly, these rules and guidelines were broken by The Beacon Hospital. What happened was wrong and a breach of trust. Behaviour of this sort undermines confidence in the vaccination programme.’
The spokesman continued: ‘The CEO should be held accountable for his actions by the board of the Beacon Hospital.”
A spokesman for Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said it was the ‘correct’ and ‘necessary’ decision to suspend vaccinations at the hospital.
‘It was a clear breach of Government rules and simply should not have happened,’ he said.
Concerns about the public mood have accelerated in the wake of the Beacon scandal with senior ministerial sources warning: ‘This may yet do us more political harm than Golfgate. It has fallen at just the wrong point.’
Higher Education Minister Simon Harris told the MoS: ‘People are beyond furious with the Beacon vaccine situation.’
He added: ‘And they are right to be. It is wrong. It is a breach of our social contract.’
Mr Harris also warned: ‘At a time when people are doing everything, they possibly can to keep people safe and sacrificing so much, this has disgusted us all.’
Privately, ministers were scathing about the initial response of the health minister with one saying: ‘This scandal requires the suspension of all services and heads on plates.
‘The owner needs to be called in and told the CEO has to go. Micheál and Stephen’s milk and water response won’t run.’
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Cabinet ministers were ‘furious’ yesterday at the actions of the hospital.
The action was forced by the decision of several ministers to communicate their belief that the National Treatment Purchase Fund be spoken to about its continued contract with the hospital.
A Cabinet minister told the MoS last night: ‘When I heard it I couldn’t believe it. I mean a private school! What kind of decision-making was at play there.’
Another minister said that calls to his constituency office on Friday spurred him to believe that some action had to be taken.
‘It was the right decision to suspend the contract,’ said the minister. ‘It really touched a nerve with an exhausted public.’
Yet another minister said: ‘We have now had a number of these breaches, many of them exposed by the Mail. We need to see further accountability here. Perhaps in Government or the HSE.’
‘This scandal requires heads on plates’