Seanad debates

Wednesday, 29 June 2011

Whistleblower Legislation: Motion

 

5:00 am

Photo of John CrownJohn Crown (Independent)

I am a whistleblower. I had the experience when I first returned to Ireland of being involved in a few whistleblowing events which taught me much about the manner in which this country is run. As a result, I am extraordinarily supportive of all efforts to try to ramp up the level of protection in place for whistleblowers. Over the years, there has been an increasing level of tolerance and encouragement for whistleblowers who are tackling vested interests other than those which are the government, including the agencies.

It was apparent to me, when I returned to Ireland in 1993, that there were severe deficiencies in cancer services. Doctors are accused of waving shrouds and creating public hysteria on alleged deficiencies when they are speaking in their own self interest. However, by any objective assessment, contemporaneously or historically, it is now widely recognised - and has been recognised by several Governments - that the circumstances which applied in cancer care in Ireland in the early to mid-1990s were dramatically below the standards that would be acceptable in an equivalently economically resourced European country at that time.

When I first started making some noises about this, a senior colleague in my institution, famous not alone for his brilliance as a clinician, researcher and academic but his extraordinary ability to cultivate relationships with officials in the Department of Health and Children and other branches of Government, took me aside for a friendly word and told me: "Whatever you do, if you do make any noises about deficiencies in the cancer services, make sure you don't do it individually. Do it through your representative organisation. If one does not exist, found one because if you do it on your own you will find yourself in a very substantial degree of personal career peril with officialdom." I was not, perhaps, then as diplomatic as I am now and had a little difficulty taking this advice.

When, through the channels, I first made overtures to point out the extraordinary level of problems we had and the fact that in a real and proximate sense patients were every week in this country dying or having their prospect of a cure or survival greatly impeded not by a lack of medical knowledge but a failure of a system to apply knowledge which existed, I found myself frustratingly being thwarted, rebuffed and brushed off as yet another hysterical doctor. I must admit that after a while this got to me and I decided this should be a matter for vigorous public debate. During the following year, mid to end 1994 to 1995 I ensured it was. The process was successful, brought about not alone by me but many others. In 1995, the then Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Michael Noonan, admitted that there were grotesque deficiencies in the cancer services and set about putting them on the top of the national agenda.

Having blown that whistle, I was informed by senior colleagues in my hospital that it was good I had completed the first year of my employment as a consultant because during the first 12 months of one's employment one is on probation and can be terminated, not in the Arnold Schwarzenegger sense but in the career sense. I was delighted to know I had got over that hurdle. I then was, when attending a meeting of the board of my hospital, told that it was the wish of senior figures that I be less vocal about deficiencies in Government policy on cancer services because it had been communicated to the hospital by certain officials that there was a real chance that planned developments, which were necessary in our hospital, might go elsewhere. When finally the issue was on the public agenda, I was brought into the Department of Health and Children together with other colleagues for a chat during which we were told that it was the wish of the officials that there be no more public debate about this matter and that it would now be dealt with internally. When I said that I was not in favour of a policy of omertá, the Sicilian code of silence, on issues of this type we were somewhat brushed off. It happened. There was substantial debate about deficiencies about cancer services. It is an awful shame it had to take that route. I learned some lessons along the way in regard to how the process works.

For the reasons outlined, I am defensive of the notion of whistleblowing in the health service. We must ensure we protect not alone whistleblowers against hospital administrators, senior nurses, senior doctors, religious orders but whistleblowers against the organs of the State.

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