Latest news with #AntonSavageShow
The Journal
a day ago
- Health
- The Journal
Redacted version of CHI report could be published this week, Health Minister says
THE MINISTER FOR Health has indicated that a version of an unpublished report detailing concerns at Children's Health Ireland (CHI) may be published this week. The internal investigation, the details of which were first reported by the Sunday Times and subsequently seen by The Journal and other media outlets, came about after concerns were raised about how waiting list initiatives were being carried out at a hospital run by CHI. It detailed how a consultant was paid €35,800 by the hospital after money was received from the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) to help cut long waiting lists. The HSE has referred the report to gardaí and the Irish Medical Council. Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has previously called for a redacted version of the report to be published. Speaking on Newstalk's Anton Savage Show this morning, she said she had not published the report after checking with the Attorney General because she has 'no legal basis' to do so. 'This was an internal human resources-type report going into some very serious cultural issues, and the people who participated in it, nurses, junior doctors and so on, they participated in it on that basis, in a confidential way,' she said. Carroll MacNeill said the report reflects what some staff said in confidence and that some of them would be identifiable In the normal course, you'd never publish something like that, but the issues in this are of such seriousness that in the broader public interest, a version of it must be published. She said that CHI are reflecting on how to publish the report 'responsibly' so that it 'tells the maximum story behind it and the steps of what has been taken next'. Advertisement When asked if she knows when this will be published, she said: 'I suspect it will be this week.' The Fine Gael TD said it is important that the people 'who might have given descriptions about what they were feeling and perhaps some of the pressures they felt' are appropriately protected. On hospital governance, Carroll MacNeill said she had a lot of questions about the different governance structures across the country. 'Ireland is a small country. It's five and a half million people. We spend a very significant amount of our taxpayers money on health, quite appropriately, but we need to make sure that we're getting the best value for that.' She said CHI was formed in an effort to create a single entity that would bring Temple Street and St James's hospitals together, adding that it has 'done that and has brought it to a certain point'. 'There's no question about that, but I do think that there's very much more work to be done to integrate a single pediatric system.' National Children's Hospital The Minister was also asked whether it was appropriate that CHI are permitted to run the new National Children's Hospital (NCH). The earliest date that the hospital will now be open to patients is June 2026. 'I think we'll be reflecting on that sort of policy structure over the next year,' she said, adding that her first concern is that the NCH is opened at the earliest possible date. She said that there are 140 consultants within CHI, and that these issues have been created from 'a very small proportion'. 'I am a parent of a child in CHI, many, many others are and they know that it's a very good service. It's very, very functional. But that doesn't mean we don't need to get deep into these problem areas.' Last month, Carroll MacNeill appointed two HSE board members to the board of CHI after three of its members resigned following the release of an independent review into children's hip surgeries at three CHI hospitals. Related Reads HSE to refer unpublished Children's Health Ireland report to gardaí and Medical Council Health Minister calls for CHI report on consultant misuse of waiting list system to be published Three members of Children's Health Ireland board resign after review into hip surgeries 'I do have another a number of vacancies which I think will need to be filled, and I think we will reflect on that in policy terms over the next number of months,' she said. She said the Government would keep 'a steady focus' on the delivery of services, the implementation of reforms where they need to happen and planning for the NCH. 'But I am watching and managing this very carefully from a medium-term policy perspective,' she added. National Treatment Purchase Fund The matter of the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) was also raised. The NTPF provides funding for patients on waiting lists to get treatment in both public and private settings. It pays for clinics to be set up in public hospitals outside of normal working hours, i.e on weekends, wherein staff already working at the hospital are paid additionally to carry out extra work. This is known as 'insourcing'. The NTPF had suspended funding to CHI hospitals over concerns raised in an internal audit, related to an insourcing clinic at the hospital. On Wednesday, it cut funding to another public hospital temporarily after finding ' potential financial irregularities' in relation to NTPF-funded insourcing work. Carroll MacNeill said that an audit of insourcing that she and HSE chief Bernard Gloster commissioned has been completed and that she expects to see the results 'possibly' in the next two to three weeks. She said the matter needs 'very serious and careful analysis', as does the issue of insourcing more broadly 'because of how it intersects with getting the best productivity within the public system'. 'We cannot have a fully public system and also be creating these other incentives. We cannot cut off these other incentives overnight because of the impact on patient care, but by God, we're going to be weaning ourselves off them.' Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
Irish Independent
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Anton Savage bringing Newstalk Show to Louth venue
The Anton Savage Show is coming live from Carlingford Marina, on Saturday June 21 and anyone who wants to be in the audience can get free tickets from Newstalk website. The tickets are free but people must register and show proof on the day, either by printing tickets OR having them downloaded on their smartphone. Anton, of course, is no stranger to the Cooley peninsula as his late father Tom, who grew up in Bush, used to bring him up to visit his grandparents. In her memoir Caution to the Wind, his mother PR guru Terry Prone recalled after they got married, Tom would 'head off on a Saturday morning in the car and do a royal tour of his friends and relatives. He would go out to Cooley and visit them, watch a match in one house and have lunch in another. In suburban Dublin you don't rock into someone's house and say 'are you good for lunch!' 'Once Anton was three or four, he would accompany him, sitting in the child seat in the back and talking all the time, the two of them like little runaways'. So, now doubt Anton will have plenty of anecdotes to share with his guests and audience in Carlingford.
