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South China Morning Post
11 hours ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Olympic great Simone Biles enjoys Hong Kong visit, shares snaps on Instagram
Olympic hero Simone Biles showed she was enjoying her visit to Hong Kong, as she uploaded pictures of herself in the city on her Instagram page. The seven-time Olympic gold medallist was in the city to take part in a UBS Asian Investment Conference, where she addressed 600 young athletes as well as fans from the local gymnastics clubs. Biles uploaded a picture of herself standing next to a sign that simply read 'Hong Kong', followed by two images of her at restaurants and another at Temple Street Night Market. Fans flooded the comments on her post with locals thrilled to see their idol in the city and many writing 'Welcome to Hong Kong'. The 28-year-old was speaking alongside UBS Global Wealth Management Asia chair Amy Lo, who had said she was 'thrilled' to welcome Biles for the conference, which ran from May 27 to 30. Biles, who received worldwide acclaim after withdrawing from the team event at the 2020 Olympics to focus on her mental health, discussed the topic of resilience.
BreakingNews.ie
a day ago
- General
- BreakingNews.ie
CHI audit finds paediatric critical care units 'under strain'
An audit of the country's two paediatric critical care units, at Crumlin and Temple Street, has found that while they deliver high-quality care, the system is under strain. The number of children admitted to adult intensive care units doubled to 148 cases in 2023. Advertisement The National Office of Clinical Audit found high bed occupancy rates, that were above 95 per cent, and says more investment is needed. The Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has said that one of her major concerns is how waiting lists are managed which was why she had called for an overall audit of how waiting lists are managed 'across the board in CHI'. Speaking on RTÉ radio's Morning Ireland, Ms Carroll MacNeill said that as Minister she needed to ensure that the public system was working in the most productive way 'during the public hours that consultants are paid to do public work in a public hospital. 'What's not acceptable and what the concern is here is that those procedures are not happening quickly enough or in a sufficiently efficient way and that they're becoming such long waiters that NTPF intervention is required. Advertisement 'So my underlying issue is, how are those lists being managed? So what I've done is, Bernard Gloster and I have decided to have an overall audit of how are these waiting lists managed generally across the board in CHI in every discipline to ensure that that's not being replicated.' Ms Carroll MacNeill urged concerned parents to 'just sit with me and sit with the NTPF for a number of days, for a week or 10 days to allow the NTPF to do their work". 'This is something where the NTPF absolutely need assurance that this is being done correctly but what they also need is to make sure that there is no mismanagement of lists such that a child is waiting so long that they are required to be on the NTPF list where there could have been an earlier surgical intervention. 'And that is the bigger issue here. That is the bigger issue and that is what raises such particular concerns around the issues in this report but it also raises the broader patient safety concerns and what we need to do is make sure that that is happening in the most productive way in the public system in every discipline.' Advertisement The Minister said that in addition to the audit there would be a change to a centralised referral mechanism which would mean that if a child was referred to a consultant surgeon, they would not be referred to an individual surgeon, but into a central referral mechanism. 'Which means that the hospital can assess who has the shortest list, who has capacity to do this, rather than being sort of assigned to or stuck with an individual, who then has the capacity to do things at whatever pace, and some of them are doing very efficiently, and others less so.' 'We need to make sure and the NTPF need to make sure, and I need to make sure, Bernard Gloucester needs to and the CHI need to make sure that there are no perverse practices or no perverse incentives from the way in which waiting lists are managed. 'So I would ask parents to just sit with me just for a week or 10 days to allow the NTPF to get these assurances and to do their work. The NTPF have already assured that existing surgery scheduled will not be impacted but our concern is we need to make sure that this isn't happening anywhere else in the system.' Advertisement Ms Carroll MacNeill acknowledged that the NTPF had only recently discovered that there had not been a referral to the National Patient Safety Office. 'Let's not underestimate the impact of that, nor was there a referral to the department or a notification to any of us. So that's not a satisfactory way of managing that, and I expect that to be very, very different. There is no CHI without the state. The state is the funder of all of these services, and people who work in CHI, both at executive level, but let me be very clear, consultants in CH , and everybody who is in CHI is a public servant, and it is important that they understand that.'
Irish Times
4 days ago
- General
- Irish Times
Revelations show appalling personal behaviour among some CHI medics
With the very future of Children's Health Ireland up for discussion in Government, further revelations about a toxic work culture operating in part of one of its hospitals will bolster the case of those who believe the organisation should simply be subsumed into the Health Service Executive . Even among those who favour its continuation as an independent entity, there are serious doubts as to whether CHI, which is responsible for the governance and operation of the three paediatric hospitals in Dublin – Temple Street , Crumlin and Tallaght – is fit for the job of running the new national children's hospital. Waves of scandal and controversy have overwhelmed the organisation in recent months. A recent report found that most hip surgeries carried out on children were unnecessary . Prior to that, it emerged that devices not cleared for surgical use were inserted into children suffering from scoliosis – the management of which has been another long-running controversy. READ MORE Its chairman and four board members have resigned. The revelations today have been quietly circulating in senior health and political circles in recent days, where they have shocked even the most hardened veterans of scandals in the health services. They paint a picture of an almost unbelievably toxic culture that was operating in a part of one of the CHI hospitals – to the extent that 'numerous participants' who took part in the confidential survey process 'expressed concern for the emotional and physical wellbeing of colleagues working in the service'. [ Report reveals 'toxic culture' among consultants at CHI hospital Opens in new window ] Repeatedly, throughout the report, the conclusions of the observers and the testimony of the employees who participated in its inquiries show that a culture of extreme toxicity characterised the operations of part of the CHI hospital. While one consultant – who is not identified by name in the report – features prominently, there are also complaints about other consultants and a hospital management unable or unwilling to deal with the consequences of the behaviour of some senior medics. Relationships between certain senior clinical figures deteriorated to the extent that one consultant instigated a legal action for defamation against another. 'It is reasonable to assume that such a case can only arise as a result of the fraught relationships within the ... service,' the report notes. 'Fraught relationships' seems to be something of an understatement. The toll on medics who were training under some of the consultants was especially acute. They spoke of 'bullying' and 'harassment', being subjected to 'humiliating and intimidating experiences' and of an 'environment where an individual feels they may be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes'. The report also includes details of how the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) may have been abused by the manipulation of waiting lists. Pointing to a greater number of patients seen in private time slots than at public clinic, it asks: 'Was throughput prioritised over patient care in NTPF clinics, noting there is a €200 fee per patient, or are the public outpatient clinics failing to operate at full capacity?' Yesterday, the Sunday Times reported that Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill had ordered a full audit of governance and practices at CHI. There are very clearly significant systemic failings in parts of the organisation and in the hospitals for which it is responsible. But the revelations today show something else too: appalling personal behaviour by some senior medics which damaged the care that patients in the hospitals received. Some trainees felt punished and excluded, belittled and victimised, to the extent that some felt that the experience – 'working in a hostile environment', as one said – had a detrimental effect on their lives. Aside from the personal consequences for people subjected to the behaviour of some senior colleagues, the report points out repeatedly that it creates an atmosphere that damages the care of patients. Aside from individual instances detailed in the report, the toxic relationships also poison the atmosphere where people are supposed to be working together for the benefit of the patients. 'The communication style, accusatory language and indeed unprofessional antics that continued over this period add to further compromise interpersonal relations, heighten levels of mistrust among colleagues and ultimately are a distraction from patient-centric care,' it found. 'Consistently throughout this examination, it was found that participant experiences reflected a culture in which challenging behaviour appears to be the norm,' the report found. 'It is critical that an organisation takes time to reflect on and own the culture that exists and then seeks to address the issues and bring about the required change.'
Irish Times
28-05-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Taoiseach: Hip dysplasia controversy should be referred to Medical Council
The Medical Council should have a role in dealing with the consultants involved in the hip dysplasia controversy , the Taoiseach has said. Micheál Martin told the Dáil the issue 'should be formally referred' to the council or to the authorities in CHI (Children's Health Ireland) and there was 'an onus' on the council to be 'proactive' in regulation of its members. It is 'important the Medical Council takes a role here in term of the professional regulation of its members', he said. He was responding to People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy , who questioned why surgeons at the centre of the controversy over paediatric hip surgeries are still operating on children. READ MORE Mr Murphy said 'one of them could do an osteotomy tomorrow. Surely they need to be suspended, or, at the very least, stopped from performing osteotomies until the audit is verified?' An audit found that over a three-year period , 60 per cent of hip dysplasia surgeries in Temple Street and 79 per cent in National Orthopaedic Hospital Cappagh (NOHC) did not meet the clinical threshold for surgical intervention. The Dublin South West TD quoted from an email sent by the then clinical director of Cappagh in November 2023; at the time, many children's surgeries were being cancelled at short notice because other surgeons thought them unnecessary. The clinical director, Mr Murphy said, had stated: 'I have decided that patients listed for pelvic osteotomies will no longer be discussed at the MDT [multidisciplinary team]. It will be up to the patient's individual consultant to review the X-ray and decide if they wish to proceed.' It was 'incredible', Mr Murphy added, that 'instead of saying something was wrong, the clinical director said 'we will stop discussing them'' at the team meetings and 'it will be fully in the hands of the original surgeon to decide what he or she would do'. [ Families whose children had hip surgeries sent letters in advance of report publication Opens in new window ] The Taoiseach agreed it was a 'serious issue, because that seems to be a shutting down of the multidisciplinary team. The multidisciplinary approach is a safeguard against wrongdoing, poor practice or ill-informed decisions, because the collective can inform.' Mr Murphy said the onus should not be on parents to request a review as he called for reviews to go back to 2002, when the operations began, rather than to 2010, as currently. The Taoiseach said he did not want to put 'too much of a burden on the parent', but the issue should be formally referred to the Medical Council or the CHI authorities. He stressed: 'It is important now that the Medical Council takes a role here in terms of the professional regulation of its members.' The council is the regulator of doctors in Ireland and is charged with promoting good medical practice. It is also the forum where members of the public can make a complaint against a doctor.
Irish Times
26-05-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on the audit of hip operations: change is needed at CHI
Children's Health Ireland (CHI) is, to use the well-worn phrase, no stranger to controversy. The voluntary body, in charge of children's healthcare in the Dublin region, is again in the spotlight following a report about unnecessary hip operations in two hospitals – Temple Street and Cappagh. The audit of these operations exposes an extraordinary situation, where children were put through unnecessary, painful, procedures. It goes without saying that clinical follow up must be comprehensive and further inquiries need to establish how and why this happened. And to examine, as the audit recommended, the evidence going back as far as 2010. Unfortunately, there is almost certainly more to come in this saga. As with the use of non-approved springs in spinal surgeries in CHI Temple Street, outlined early this year in a HIQA report, the latest audit points to a major failure in surgical oversight. We need clear answers about why the system in CHI failed so completely. A wider review of the operation of the clinical director system, introduced in the 2008 consultant contract, is also now appropriate. The idea itself has merit, giving clinicians responsibility at management level for the delivery of safe and quality care. But is it doing enough to guarantee not only safe but also efficient services? READ MORE The Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, also needs to reflect on the future of the CHI structure, due now to take over the running of the new children's hospital. The CHI has been hit by a string of controversies – in relation to the building of the hospital and planning for its operation, the long waiting lists for scoliosis patients and how funding allocated for this was spent, and delays in the appointment of a chief executive. Last year the then health minister, Stephen Donnelly, asked for legal advice on whether the State could take over the functions of the CHI, which would mean it coming under the control of the HSE. At the moment it has a separate board and management. The advice was that this could only happen if an independent report provided evidence of serious governance or other failings. The failings outlined in the audit – and last year's HIQA report –are clearly significant. And it is unacceptable that the head of the HSE can – as happened on Sunday – be asked on RTÉ about a report on a surgeon who allegedly transferred patients from a pubic to a private list, and say he was never informed by the CHI about it. The CHI is part of a voluntary hospital structures which is largely State funded, but jealously guards its independence. It is an opaque structure, with no adequate accountability. There is no reason to question the motivations of those charged with running the CHI – and board volunteers will be scarce – or the good work of the vast bulk of its staff. But change is needed.
