16 family members given vaccine

plodder

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

Are you suggesting that it's only nepotism if committed in the public sector?

Don't recall that in the dictionary.

"nepotism

the practice among those with power or influence of favouring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs."

It's nepotism if it is done against the rules. It's clearly against the rules in the public sector and in public companies in the private sector. It obviously isn't in family businesses and might not be in other small privately owned enterprises.

Personally, I thought after apologising that should have been the end of it, but the explanation about his two children who "worked" part time in the hospital was dubious enough. It's more so now, after we heard about the students being passed over. Though I still think he had to make a decision in real time and probably hadn't planned this beforehand.

seamus

plodder wrote: »

Personally, I thought after apologising that should have been the end of it, but the explanation about his two children who "worked" part time in the hospital was dubious enough. It's more so now, after we heard about the students being passed over. Though I still think he had to make a decision in real time and probably hadn't planned this beforehand.

I'd probably still be giving him the benefit of the doubt if he hadn't sent an email the next day saying they weren't "in a position" to vaccinate these students.

He knew they were ready and waiting. Never mind the 16 unallocated doses, when they discovered they had 100-odd doses spare, those students should have been first in line.

The fact that he went off to the HSE to get other names suggests a possibly deliberate act to exclude these students. There should have been no reason why they would have been passed over, fast-moving situation or not.

The email the next day smells like an arse-covering exercise. He either thought, "Oh **** I forgot about the students but I don't want to say that", or, "They'll never know there were more doses available".

Neither of which are acceptable explanations.

Niner leprauchan

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

So you work in the private sector?

Attack the post not the poster

Before the edit you asked if I got my job through daddy. The answer is no because American multinationals dont take instructions from ordinary workers in North Dublin, believe it or not. There’s no job or interview I have ever got based on my parentage.

That leaves you justifying public corruption. Your spurious argument that public corruption is ok because a small shopkeeper might hire his son or daughter is pretty weak. You started out justifying this incident but have moved into justifying all public corruption.

Worrying.

patnor1011

patnor1011 wrote: »

Nepotism is a part of this country DNA. From politics down to jobs, it is everywhere. I would not lose sleep over the 16 vaccines being given to family members.
The real number of such deals is most likely a thousand times bigger.

This needs to be nipped in the bud if we are going to give out vaccines and also passports to go with them.

RandomViewer

[Deleted User] wrote: »

This needs to be nipped in the bud if we are going to give out vaccines and also passports to go with them.

He was stealing from work, sacking offence, no difference to a shop worker not charging their mates for a slab of beer.

steddyeddy

seamus wrote: »

I'd probably still be giving him the benefit of the doubt if he hadn't sent an email the next day saying they weren't "in a position" to vaccinate these students.

He knew they were ready and waiting. Never mind the 16 unallocated doses, when they discovered they had 100-odd doses spare, those students should have been first in line.

The fact that he went off to the HSE to get other names suggests a possibly deliberate act to exclude these students. There should have been no reason why they would have been passed over, fast-moving situation or not.

The email the next day smells like an arse-covering exercise. He either thought, "Oh **** I forgot about the students but I don't want to say that", or, "They'll never know there were more doses available".

Neither of which are acceptable explanations.

Look at the power differential involved. He's the master of the Coombe and they're medical students. Those at that stage in their career are worked like dogs and expected to accept any behaviour from the higher ups.

BrianD3

<Mod snip: You shouldn't need to personalize your argument>

The Gardai always had a problem with nepotism and if this was questioned the attempted justification was that keeping it in the family reduced the chance of criminals and bad apples infiltrating the force. It didn't eliminate the bad apples plus we got corruption and useless lazy idiots recruited because of who they knew.

Also a problem in Health Boards, County Councils and Education. Maybe less of an issue in the Civil Service. I see from post histories that one of the posters in this thread excusing nepotism and posting "smart" comments applied for a job in the CS - hopefully the processes worked to weed out this type of undesirable individual.

I was a public servant for many years and can say that many public servants despise this crap, it devalues the service and brings ridicule and shame onto it. It is hopefully dying out but there are still plenty who think it is fine. I have come across an individual who came straight out and said employing family members was a "perk of the job", this individual works in HR :rolleyes:

Jobs and contracts for relatives is bad enough but its worse again if we're talking about healthcare for relatives ahead of others, truly despicable.

lucernarian

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

Oh ffs. Drama much?

If there's a few extra shots going begging, give them to people. There's not a person on this thread that wouldn't look after their own family in that scenario.

Yeah, that's part of the problem with it all. I still think it's the HSE's fault for not anticipating this and they ending up with 120 spare doses to be used asap. The guidelines for how to avoid this only came out in mid-January, which is sloppy and tragic given how urgent the first rollout was amidst extremely high community prevalence.

Natterjack from Kerry

steddyeddy wrote: »

Look at the power differential involved. He's the master of the Coombe and they're medical students.

Being master of your domain brings responsibility to not make a certain decisions just because you can.

suicide_circus

even if there wasnt a list of medical students to receive spare vaccines, which there was, the last and i mean THE LAST people that master should have chosen to get these jabs were his own kids. Its all kinds of wrong. Its frightening how many people in this thread and elsewhere saw no problem with it. We need to set better standards for ourselves as a nation.

hotmail.com

Has the report been published yet?

seamus

steddyeddy wrote: »

Look at the power differential involved. He's the master of the Coombe and they're medical students. Those at that stage in their career are worked like dogs and expected to accept any behaviour from the higher ups.

I see what you're saying, but I don't know the relevance. Are you suggesting that they were deliberately excluded because of some ingrained notion that medical students should be informally "hazed" and put at the back of the queue for everything?

RandomViewer

Sh1t still going on

https://www.highlandradio.com/2021/03/03/serious-questions-after-local-vaccine-controversy/

bucketybuck

RandomViewer wrote: »

Sh1t still going on

The issue isn't that it is still going on, it is that the entire process was undermined from the start and one inevitable consequence was that others would take their lead from that.

That is what some people didn't seem to understand, it was never about 10 or 20 vials, it was about the integrity of the system. It was important that this was all seen to be done right, but instead right out the door senior figures were manipulating things for their own ends.

It can't be any surprise now that others feel justified in doing the same.

horse7

I'm still trying to find out what vaccine group my friend is in for getting the vaccine, he,s 63 and is has been treated with high tec immuno suppressant medication for several years, used to be treated with humera (rhumitoid arthritis) but on another high tech treatment. So basically a compromised immune system. Is attending hospital outpatients not gp.

steddyeddy

seamus wrote: »

I see what you're saying, but I don't know the relevance. Are you suggesting that they were deliberately excluded because of some ingrained notion that medical students should be informally "hazed" and put at the back of the queue for everything?

A combination of that maybe and the fact that he knew medical students would be afraid to speak up against it.

Tails142

Independent.ie reporting a whole village in kerry did their over 70's after accidentally getting too big a delivery, no mention of who loses out because of this. blatant cute hoorism at play I'm sure, I'm sure they're all sleeping soundly at night

Van.Bosch

Tails142 wrote: »

Independent.ie reporting a whole village in kerry did their over 70's after accidentally getting too big a delivery, no mention of who loses out because of this. blatant cute hoorism at play I'm sure, I'm sure they're all sleeping soundly at night

The difference is over 70s are the group being vaccinated at present, so it’s not as big a deal I don’t think.

johnnyskeleton

bucketybuck wrote: »

The issue isn't that it is still going on, it is that the entire process was undermined from the start and one inevitable consequence was that others would take their lead from that.

That is what some people didn't seem to understand, it was never about 10 or 20 vials, it was about the integrity of the system. It was important that this was all seen to be done right, but instead right out the door senior figures were manipulating things for their own ends.

It can't be any surprise now that others feel justified in doing the same.

Looked at another way, theres an old saying that you can have something done quick, or done right, but not both.

Ireland seems to distribute the vaccines quickly when we get them which is good. But the price we pay for this speed is "slippage".

Whether it would be better to roll out more slowly but in a more accountable manner is a political question, and none of the above is to say we should absolve anyone who helped their family skip the queue etc, but overall Im happy that we get it rolled out as quickly as possible, and the risk that some people may get it out of turn is an acceptable risk that we just have to try to minimise

iamwhoiam

Tails142 wrote: »

Independent.ie reporting a whole village in kerry did their over 70's after accidentally getting too big a delivery, no mention of who loses out because of this. blatant cute hoorism at play I'm sure, I'm sure they're all sleeping soundly at night

Over 70 's are being done anyway now so I cant see the issue ? Great for that village !

bucketybuck

Van.Bosch wrote: »

The difference is over 70s are the group being vaccinated at present, so it’s not as big a deal I don’t think.

Nothing is ever a big deal if looked at individually.

"It was just a few vials, whats the harm?" "It was given to older people, whats the problem?".

The problem is that all of these examples demonstrate that the processes and procedures are not fit for purpose, and worse are wide open for abuse. And when scaled out that means tens of thousands of people having to wait longer for their own vaccine, and millions of people having to wait longer to get their lives back.

odyssey06

iamwhoiam wrote: »

Over 70 's are being done anyway now so I cant see the issue ? Great for that village !

The issue is that over 80s not started in some places in Dublin and over 80s much higher risk than over 70s.

seamus

iamwhoiam wrote: »

Over 70 's are being done anyway now so I cant see the issue ? Great for that village !

There are two issues at play;

1. GPs ordering more doses than they should delays other practices from getting to their high-priority patient. A vaccination in the arm of a 70-year old in Kerry means that an 92-year-old in Co. Louth may not get it for 3 weeks.

2. It could spark off hoarding and territorialism; when word spreads of what one moron in Kerry did, other GPs around the country may start doing the same thing.

The HSE should send around a quick note reminding GPs that they should only be ordering vaccines for the current age range being vaccinated, and that an audit will be carried out afterwards to ensure that practices haven't being jumping the queue.

iamwhoiam

seamus wrote: »

There are two issues at play;

1. GPs ordering more doses than they should delays other practices from getting to their high-priority patient. A vaccination in the arm of a 70-year old in Kerry means that an 92-year-old in Co. Louth may not get it for 3 weeks.

2. It could spark off hoarding and territorialism; when word spreads of what one moron in Kerry did, other GPs around the country may start doing the same thing.

The HSE should send around a quick note reminding GPs that they should only be ordering vaccines for the current age range being vaccinated, and that an audit will be carried out afterwards to ensure that practices haven't being jumping the queue.

Did he order a bigger amount or get a bigger amount than he ordered ? I understood the later .

seamus

We'll find out, but it sounds very strange that a GP in a town of 450 people would "accidentally" receive 300 doses of a vaccine.

It was in Sneem; prime Healy-Rae country.

Given that you need more than 200 over-70s to be able to request the vaccine, it's unlikely to be a clerical error on the part of the HSE where they wrote down 30 but got 300.

It's more likely that they requested 300.

Red Silurian

seamus wrote: »

There are two issues at play;

1. GPs ordering more doses than they should delays other practices from getting to their high-priority patient. A vaccination in the arm of a 70-year old in Kerry means that an 92-year-old in Co. Louth may not get it for 3 weeks.

2. It could spark off hoarding and territorialism; when word spreads of what one moron in Kerry did, other GPs around the country may start doing the same thing.

The HSE should send around a quick note reminding GPs that they should only be ordering vaccines for the current age range being vaccinated, and that an audit will be carried out afterwards to ensure that practices haven't being jumping the queue.

It's not quite as simple as that, if a GP surgery has 200 people in the vaccination age group and each vile contains 6 doses the GP will need to be sent 34 viles giving 204 doses, the question then becomes what do they do with the 4 spares?

steddyeddy

I'm long out of Ireland now but my central point in this thread is that my experience in the HSE has taught me that it's replete with examples of incestuous hiring policies and therefore, no consequences for incompetent but related staff members.

kennypowers

Tails142 wrote: »

Independent.ie reporting a whole village in kerry did their over 70's after accidentally getting too big a delivery, no mention of who loses out because of this. blatant cute hoorism at play I'm sure, I'm sure they're all sleeping soundly at night

seamus wrote: »

We'll find out, but it sounds very strange that a GP in a town of 450 people would "accidentally" receive 300 doses of a vaccine.

It was in Sneem; prime Healy-Rae country.

Given that you need more than 200 over-70s to be able to request the vaccine, it's unlikely to be a clerical error on the part of the HSE where they wrote down 30 but got 300.

It's more likely that they requested 300.

The gp in question covers an area from Waterville to Kenmare a distance of 35 miles .The articles in various news outlets clearly state that he has 1600 people on his register .The headline figure of 300 vaccines for a population of 450 was blatant attention grabbing and helps lead to stupid speculation/fantasy that it was politically driven .

GreeBo

bucketybuck wrote: »

Of course, nothing to see here.

Except that people got lambasted in this thread for daring to suggest that perhaps not everything was above aboard in this case, for daring to suggest that our front line hero was anything but honest in all of his dealings.

Those people were accusing him without a shred of evidence, others were giving him the benefit of the doubt, big difference

iamwhoiam

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/coombe-doctor-brought-covid-19-vaccines-home-for-family-report-finds-1.4526397?mode=amp



And so it begins . The Coombe in trouble now