Thread by @PhelanVicky

Accountability & Covid19 - A thread

On this date 2 years ago, Thursday April 25, 2018 I settled my court case & exposed the CervicalCheck debacle. This opened the door for other women and their families to get answers to questions about their cancer diagnosis, and, for many...

including me, to find some level of accountability for what had happened to us.

I campaigned for a review of our national cervical screening programme which resulted in the appointment of @gabrielscally & the eventual publication of the Scally Report, which marked a watershed

moment in Irish healthcare. The report produced by Dr. Scally and his team was unafraid to criticise & highlighted serious gaps in governance of CervicalCheck, huge flaws in our open disclosure policy and recommended the reinstatement of a Board to oversee the running of the HSE.

I fear that, 2 years down the road, some of the very same issues raised by Dr. Scally are rearing their ugly heads again now during the #COVID19 crisis. @labour Party leader @alankellylabour raised a series of Qs in the Dáil last week about governance and transparency issues

concerning the NPHET, chaired by @CMOIreland, Dr. Tony Holohan. The NPHET, which oversees the response to the #COVID19 crisis and which advises Government on the steps that it should take to deal with the crisis, does not appear to be answerable to anybody!

There do not appear to be any notes or minutes of meetings. There does not appear to be any oversight of how major decisions about the state of our nation, during a national crisis, are being made.

Have we learned nothing from the Cervical Check debacle???

There also appear to be cracks appearing in the relationship between the @roinnslainte & the @HSELive.

In an article in today’s @IrishTimes, Qs have been raised by the HSE over the announcement by the CMO during an appearance on the @RTELateLateShow last week that testing for

Covid-19 is to be expanded to cover 100,000 cases a week!

Apparently, there was a lack of consultation with the HSE regarding this decision, something that, quite frankly, would not surprise me in the least.

We have also seen in the last few days the resignation of Dr. Marcus Be Brun, a GP, from his membership on the board of the Irish Medical Council over systemic failures to protect residents in a nursing home in north Dublin.

We, as a nation, are being asked to be accountable

for 'our' actions by staying at home, social distancing & doing our bit to prevent spread of the virus.

Surely, it is not too much to ask those in charge of decision-making during this crisis, to be held accountable for 'their' actions?

#Covid19Accountability