In che modo negligenza e avidità per i bambini l’Irlanda della salute mettono a rischio i pazienti

They called them orphans. This was the term used by some hospital staff to describe a group of vulnerable children — patients effectively stranded at the Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) hospital, who received substandard care long after national policy and clinical best practice dictated that they should have been moved to another hospital.

The decision wasn’t medical. Behind it lies a deeper, more disturbing reality: the country’s flagship children’s health service is being held hostage by a toxic internal culture — one marked by professional rivalries, bullying and a failure of leadership that put patient safety at risk.

The discovery of the orphans was made during an examination of services at one CHI hospital which uncovered a catalogue of dysfunction: a consultant devising schemes to enrich himself; surgical trainees being subjected to humiliation; and children subjected to intolerable risks because of mismanaged services.

One risk assessment from 2021 gave a sub-section of a department a “red” score of 20 out of 25 — just five points from the worst possible rating.

But more than anything else, the decision to keep the findings of the investigation from the public illustrates how CHI, the body charged with overseeing Ireland’s children’s hospitals, has failed in its fundamental duty: to provide medical care to the country’s most vulnerable patients — sick children.