Reports consultant referred patients to private clinic should be ‘followed up’

By Cate McCurry, PA

Reports that an investigation found a consultant had breached guidelines by referring public patients to his own private clinic are “very worrying” and need to be “followed up”, the Taoiseach has said.

Micheál Martin said that Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill was “strengthening” governance within Children’s Health Ireland (CHI).

He was speaking after a report in the Sunday Times suggested that an internal investigation led by the CHI found that the consultant was paid thousands of euro through the state’s National Treatment Purchase Fund.

Speaking in Killarney on Monday, Mr Martin said: “I read that report yesterday.

“I think it’s very worrying, and I know that the Minister for Health is already working in terms of strengthening governance within CHI, and there are a number of appointments from the HSE board to the board of CHI.

“That needs to be followed up, that issue, in addition to the report that was published late last week in respect of the surgeries for dysplasia, where it transpired that quite a number of them, particularly in Temple Street and in Cappagh, did not meet the criteria that the author of the report had set as a reasonable criteria to justify surgical intervention.

“I think these are very, very serious issues that we will continue to follow up on in respect of CHI more generally.”

HSE chief Bernard Gloster has said the CHI being fully subsumed into the HSE was an option being considered amid concerns around clinical care and governance.

Last week, an audit of the CHI identified that many children underwent “unnecessary” hip surgeries in two Dublin hospitals.

The clinical audit of dysplasia of the hips surgery in children found that a lower threshold for operations was used at CHI Temple Street Hospital and the National Orthopaedic Hospital Cappagh (NOHC) than the threshold used at CHI Crumlin.

The review found that in the period 2021 to 2023, almost 80 per cent of children operated on at the NOHC, and 60 per cent of those at Temple Street, did not meet the threshold for surgery.

Mr Gloster said 2,259 children who underwent hip surgeries in the three hospitals (NOHC, CHI Temple Street and CHI Crumlin) from as far back as 2010 will now be subject to clinical reviews.