16 family members given vaccine

iamwhoiam

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The Coombe internal emails are interesting to say the least. Chris has it in for MOC.

Once again giving information you shouldn’t be giving . So unprofessional

steddyeddy

plodder wrote: »

Ah seriously. There isn't time for enquiries over this. So long as some lessons have been learned, it's time to move on.

You haven't a clue about the nature of the HSE and the problems therein.

2010

AN inquiry into alleged nepotism in the Health Service Executive (HSE), which saw the relatives of several senior executives hired for well-paid summer work, has forced an overhaul of recruitment systems, the Irish Independent has learned.

There was fury during the summer after it emerged that the children and spouses of senior HSE staff were taken on, mostly in Cork and Limerick, to help speed up the payment of the Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance, which is provided by the HSE.

Followed by we're sorry and we've learnt our lesson blah blah blah.

2011

The Irish Examiner has learnt that HSE staff in the mid-west region have expressed concern at how people who were taken on as temporary community welfare officers (CWOs) last year outside normal recruitment procedures were given new positions as clerical officers last month.

It is understood at least three people, who are closely related to long-serving HSE staff, have got jobs through this process.

Then we seen the cervical check scandal, which although not comparable in outcome to this event also suffered from clerical incompetence involving lists.

Over the past few weeks, reports of six month waits for results have emerged, 6,000 smears have expired due to a "confusion" between labs, and an enormous backlog in the programme has since been described as a separate issue entirely.

These sort of issues were highlighted long before they became problems and likewise people assume that lessons are learnt.

So what lessons were learnt here? The coombe master has suddenly decided that nepotism is wrong? The HSE has decided that IT platforms and lists should now be in place for vaccinations? This organisation won't change because the staff behind the scenes suffer from an incestuous self-defensive culture. There's no impetus to change.

iamwhoiam

iamwhoiam wrote: »

Once again giving information you shouldn’t be giving . So unprofessional

I believe that MOC is in the wrong and his position is untenable. I would have had a lot of time and respect for MOC before this. I didn't release information in the e-mails.

steddyeddy

seamus wrote: »

So which is it? The rollout should be unaffected by this kind of thing, or relatives of management should be discriminated against and denied access to vaccines until every stone has been looked under?

It's funny that all of those shouting loudest about nepotism seem to have no problem at all artificially bumping someone DOWN the list because of who they're related to.

It always seems to be the privileged that have their privilege questioned that are the first to shout discrimination.

We have groups organised in a manner dependent on priority. Relatives who weren't frontline hospital workers shouldn't have got it before the primary roll outs were complete.

You seem to believe there's nothing wrong with rewarding relatives at expense of others Seamus. It's either that or your genuinely believe that his sons were the highest priority available.

Mrsmum

The way I look at it, he made a very poor decision. He knows he did and has apologised for it. That's ok by me. But for other people to be saying he didn't do anything wrong is ridiculous and actually imo they are not doing him any favours defending the indefensible and just prolonging the conversation.

Wombatman

Melanchthon wrote: »

Pure deflection and excusing nepotism, they are college age, massively far down the list and part of the lowest risk category, a hospital the size of the Coombe it would be a piece of piss to get elderly staff relatives.

Fathers to be would have been on site at the time with their partners. Most will be busy with young babies in the coming months. Would have been a no brainer to select them, or 20 other groups, before even considering the Masters kids. The worst type of nepotism, plain and simple.

Re. the binary choice of the Masters kids Vs the bin. If somebody approached some posters on here, and asked them if they wanted to be hit in the face with a small hammer or a large hammer, I fully expect their replay would be "Small hammer please". Alternatives like please don't hit me at all or can you replace the hammer with a feather please, wouldn't cross their minds.

If they had local autonomy to select the kids, they could have easily used the same autonomy to select other, more suitable candidates, without the spurious call to the HSE.

steddyeddy

Mrsmum wrote: »

The way I look at it, he made a very poor decision. He knows he did and has apologised for it. That's ok by me. But for other people to be saying he didn't do anything wrong is ridiculous and actually imo they are not doing him any favours defending the indefensible and just prolonging the conversation.

The apology is welcome. To me the HSE is the biggest source of incompetence. The defence of nepotism usually stems from benefitting from family ties or nepotism in my experience.

hynesie08

Melanchthon wrote: »

Pure deflection and excusing nepotism, they are college age, massively far down the list and part of the lowest risk category, a hospital the size of the Coombe it would be a piece of piss to get elderly staff relatives.

But they're also healthcare workers, which puts them way up the list....

A piece of piss, they got 9 of 16 out to over 70s on very short notice, that's fantastic, it seems like the master is too good for public service....

lol @ the drama in this thread where the choice was use up the remaining vaccine or throw it in the bin and people are moaning about the choices of people picked at 9pm at night after 1100 people were given the jab that day and these were leftover doses

Honestly folks, storm in a teacup

Time to move on.

1k posts over this, lol

seamus

steddyeddy wrote: »

It's either that or your genuinely believe that his sons were the highest priority available.

Everything we know about the situation says that these two individuals, being part of group 4, were the next highest priority available.

Maybe other members of group 4 may have been available, but there's no reason to randomly discriminate against these two, no matter your own personal feelings about privilege.

Could they have found more "appropriate" individuals, given another half an hour? Maybe. But there was nothing inappropriate about these two except the optics of it.

steddyeddy

seamus wrote: »

Everything we know about the situation says that these two individuals, being part of group 4, were the next highest priority available.

Maybe other members of group 4 may have been available, but there's no reason to randomly discriminate against these two, no matter your own personal feelings about privilege.

Could they have found more "appropriate" individuals, given another half an hour? Maybe. But there was nothing inappropriate about these two except the optics of it.

Yep nothing to do with the fact they were his sons. Both his sons at that. The odds are astronomically in favour of nepotism.

McFly85

Mrsmum wrote: »

The way I look at it, he made a very poor decision. He knows he did and has apologised for it. That's ok by me. But for other people to be saying he didn't do anything wrong is ridiculous and actually imo they are not doing him any favours defending the indefensible and just prolonging the conversation.

He definitely made a bad call and should have at least understood that the optics of his kids getting vaccinated wouldn't be great. I think most would agree with that and understand that he should apologise for it.

But there have been people in this thread calling for resignations and using this as some sort of evidence of systemic corruption which is a completely overblown reaction. He was in a time pressured situation and looked to use as many of the extra doses that were available for relevant front line workers beforehand.

I see no reason right now to not believe him, so let them have an enquiry so he can go into detail about how he came to his decisions.

steddyeddy

Mrsmum wrote: »

The way I look at it, he made a very poor decision. He knows he did and has apologised for it. That's ok by me. But for other people to be saying he didn't do anything wrong is ridiculous and actually imo they are not doing him any favours defending the indefensible and just prolonging the conversation.

The defenders are even claiming his apology wasn't sincere. His admission of guilt wasn't even an admission of guilt apparently.

seamus

Of course the fact they were his sons was relevant. They were looking for appropriate people to give the vaccination to. The first thing you do is think of people you can get in contact with at short notice. If he had not been there and someone else had been co-ordinating this, their relatives would have been selected.

This boils down to your belief that he should have automatically disregarded relatives for this regardless of whether they were of sufficient priority. That he should have not given it to his octogenerian mother, because she's his mother. Better that a dose goes to waste.

That's just being spiteful for the sake of it.

Maxpfizer

Wouldn't there have to be some kind of consultation or checking etc before giving someone the vaccine at all?

Surely they haven't just said "we've got 16 doses going free here let's look in my phone contacts and see who might want half of a vaccine".
What about the 2nd dose? "Ah sure we'll just deal with that down the line."

Isn't it all a bit risky and unprofessional to just be randomly selecting people to receive leftover first doses?
What if they don't have the corresponding 16 second doses left over in a few weeks?

Wombatman

Deleted User wrote: »

lol @ the drama in this thread where the choice was use up the remaining vaccine or throw it in the bin and people are moaning about the choices of people picked at 9pm at night after 1100 people were given the jab that day and these were leftover doses

Honestly folks, storm in a teacup

Time to move on.

1k posts over this, lol

Yeah, you would wonder why every news outlet in the country is running with the story.

Mrsmum

steddyeddy wrote: »

The defenders are even claiming his apology wasn't sincere. His admission of guilt wasn't even an admission of guilt apparently.

I haven't read back the last number of pages but if people are doing that, they are actually demeaning the man. He gave a decent apology and it is accepted by any fair minded person. To say he didn't mean it is an insult to his integrity.

lucernarian

seamus wrote: »

Of course the fact they were his sons was relevant. They were looking for appropriate people to give the vaccination to. The first thing you do is think of people you can get in contact with at short notice. If he had not been there and someone else had been co-ordinating this, their relatives would have been selected.

This boils down to your belief that he should have automatically disregarded relatives for this regardless of whether they were of sufficient priority. That he should have not given it to his octogenerian mother, because she's his mother. Better that a dose goes to waste.

That's just being spiteful for the sake of it.

Sidestepping again that the HSE didn't plan for this scenario and left people like the Master of the Coombe on the hook for such critical decisions. That's the real problem here, and too many people want to shut any and all criticism down, including yourself it seems.

RandomViewer

Has he resigned yet?

steddyeddy

Maxpfizer wrote: »

Wouldn't there have to be some kind of consultation or checking etc before giving someone the vaccine at all?

Surely they haven't just said "we've got 16 doses going free here let's look in my phone contacts and see who might want half of a vaccine".
What about the 2nd dose? "Ah sure we'll just deal with that down the line."

Isn't it all a bit risky and unprofessional to just be randomly selecting people to receive leftover first doses?
What if they don't have the corresponding 16 second doses left over in a few weeks?

In every vaccination program you're entitled to give random shots as long as they're logged and highest priority were dealt with first.

Nepotism in medicine on the other hand is very much frowned upon. In fact it's seen as very bad practice to put your family forward at the expense of others.

steddyeddy

seamus wrote: »

Of course the fact they were his sons was relevant. They were looking for appropriate people to give the vaccination to. The first thing you do is think of people you can get in contact with at short notice. If he had not been there and someone else had been co-ordinating this, their relatives would have been selected.

This boils down to your belief that he should have automatically disregarded relatives for this regardless of whether they were of sufficient priority. That he should have not given it to his octogenerian mother, because she's his mother. Better that a dose goes to waste.

That's just being spiteful for the sake of it.

That boils down to your perception of questioning privilege as discrimination S. It is b"oll"x of the highest order to suggest that there wasn't any other staff relatives, friends or even nearby patients in a higher risk category than his two college going sons, one of whom didn't even go there.

Based on that fairly solid conclusion it's also very likely that his two college going sons only got it ahead of those more suited because they were his sons.

steddyeddy

Melanchthon wrote: »

Pure deflection and excusing nepotism, they are college age, massively far down the list and part of the lowest risk category, a hospital the size of the Coombe it would be a piece of piss to get elderly staff relatives.

Amazingly not giving priority to relatives ahead of higher priority people equates to "bumping down".

lucernarian

lucernarian wrote: »

Sidestepping again that the HSE didn't plan for this scenario and left people like the Master of the Coombe on the hook for such critical decisions. That's the real problem here, and too many people want to shut any and all criticism down, including yourself it seems.

The HSE had no plan for spare vaccines in place.
The master of the Coombe was faced with a decision what to do with them.
Throw them out, or give them to someone.
Throwing them out seemed like a waste.
Giving them to some other hospital or Gardai etc could open him up to all sorts of legal issues in super litigious Ireland - so he made the decision to give them to family members, most of whom were over 70 as I understand it.

He made the right decision here. The blame lies with the HSE for not planning for this.

David McWilliams had a guy from the Israeli vaccine rollout on a recent podcast.

They had factored this and a hundred other things that the HSE haven't even thought of. They work from the principle that on average 85% of the scheduled people for vaccinations will actually be available on the day. They assembled a panel of international leading experts from all sorts of fields, not just the likes of local medics, public sector employees and ivory tower academics like in Ireland.

Everybody bitching on here should listen to it, and stop blaming a man who made the right decision. If anyone from the HSE planning department is reading this, they should listen to the podcast and then contact this guy.

steddyeddy

Deleted User wrote: »

The HSE had no plan for spare vaccines in place.
The master of the Coombe was faced with a decision what to do with them.
Throw them out, or give them to someone. his sons
Throwing them out seemed like a waste.
Giving them to some other hospital or Gardai etc could open him up to all sorts of legal issues in super litigious Ireland - so he made the decision to give them to family members, most of whom were over 70 as I understand it.

He made the right decision here. The blame lies with the HSE for not planning for this. David McWilliams had a guy from the Israeli vaccine rollout on a recent podcast. They had factored this and a hundred other things that the HSE haven't even thought of. Everybody bitching on here should listen to it.

Fixed.

The HSE is to blame here but that doesn't excuse choosing his kids over higher priority.

hynesie08

steddyeddy wrote: »

Amazingly not giving priority to relatives ahead of higher priority people equates to "bumping down".

Not giving priority to higher priority people because of their relatives is bumping down, in fact this backup list you keep going on about specifically says group 4 if no candidates available in group 2........ Which is exactly what he did.

Christy42

Wombatman wrote: »

Fathers to be would have been on site at the time with their partners. Most will be busy with young babies in the coming months. Would have been a no brainer to select them, or 20 other groups, before even considering the Masters kids. The worst type of nepotism, plain and simple.

Re. the binary choice of the Masters kids Vs the bin. If somebody approached some posters on here, and asked them if they wanted to be hit in the face with a small hammer or a large hammer, I fully expect their replay would be "Small hammer please". Alternatives like please don't hit me at all or can you replace the hammer with a feather please, wouldn't cross their minds.

If they had local autonomy to select the kids, they could have easily used the same autonomy to select other, more suitable candidates, without the spurious call to the HSE.

Surely the dads would be lower priority than people working in medical field (even if not front line staff). Depending on the exact field of work for each dad.

Do we want lower or higher priority people to be targeted because seems to get mixed up.

Newuser2

Wombatman wrote: »

Yeah, you would wonder why every news outlet in the country is running with the story.

Covid is a cash cow for them

steddyeddy

Wombatman wrote: »

Yeah, you would wonder why every news outlet in the country is running with the story.

And the BBC.

steddyeddy

steddyeddy wrote: »

Fixed.

The HSE is to blame here but that doesn't excuse choosing his kids over higher priority.

He has sons over 70? How old is this guy?

How was it practical to bust into a garda station at 3 AM and say "Right lads, arms out, here comes the vaccine" - especially when the HSE had no official policy at the time on leftovers. I certainly wouldn't want that legal risk.

hynesie08

Wombatman wrote: »

Fathers to be would have been on site at the time with their partners. Most will be busy with young babies in the coming months. Would have been a no brainer to select them, or 20 other groups, before even considering the Masters kids. The worst type of nepotism, plain and simple.

Re. the binary choice of the Masters kids Vs the bin. If somebody approached some posters on here, and asked them if they wanted to be hit in the face with a small hammer or a large hammer, I fully expect their replay would be "Small hammer please". Alternatives like please don't hit me at all or can you replace the hammer with a feather please, wouldn't cross their minds.

If they had local autonomy to select the kids, they could have easily used the same autonomy to select other, more suitable candidates, without the spurious call to the HSE.

Fathers are only allowed in when the mothers in the delivery room, otherwise they are not on the premises, are you suggesting we pull them away from the birth of their child to vaccinate them?