Terrified and confused
Related Articles
AS the breast test scandal unfolds in one outrageous episode after another, it is easy to forget the bland promises and reassurances that have emanated from the Health Service Executive along the way.
When the HSE offered a verbal assurance that women whose breast checks were being reviewed had no need for concern, we commented that it was not worth the paper it was written on.
Far from being reassured, women have been terrified and confused.
Now hundreds more must wait to see if they are among the 97 suspected of possibly having cancer.
It is a brutal and unacceptable situation. Even at this late stage, someone must accept responsibility.
All along, the Government has remained aloof, referring all protests and requests for information to the HSE.
The Taoiseach's petulant outburst in the Dail, in which he refused to accept responsibility for the actions of thousands of individual health service workers, deliberately missed the point.
Political responsibility cannot be hived off to an unelected body staffed by anonymous, unaccountable figures.
The political inaction that has led directly to the breast checks scandal goes back to a time when the HSE was no more than a gleam in Bertie Ahern's eye.
Seven years ago, an expert group recommended that breast cancer care be concentrated in a few centres of excellence, the idea that is now being touted as revolutionary.
Government, through the Department of Health and, more recently, the HSE, has failed to fulfil its promises of improved services.
Professor Niall Higgins, who chaired the expert group that recommended the centres of excellence in 2000 and who, this year, chaired another group, which defined the required standards, has described those failures as "beyond acceptability".
The shameless shirking of responsibility accompanied by the ongoing brazen grooming of an individual scapegoat are quite sickening.
Mary Harney sought the ministry of health, intending to make things better.
Six months after her reappointment, the public's perception of the health service is that no one is in charge, no one is accountable.
Perhaps the time has come to ask herself whether she is indeed the right person for the job.
