Sir, – In the wake of recent news stories shattering confidence in the Irish health service, it has never been more evident that there needs to be a move towards an open disclosure policy in the HSE.
However, the adversarial nature of the law leads to finger-pointing at individuals, when in most cases it is a flawed system and not one single person at fault.
Sadly, if there is a perceived threat that acknowledgement of an error will lead to automatic blame, as is the current situation, I do not believe open disclosure in its entirety will ever be truly embraced here.
Patients and their families deserve the basic right to clear and open communication from their health providers. However, there needs to be a cultural shift in the public and media to a no-blame system that has been successfully implemented in other countries such as Australia to achieve this. – Yours, etc,
Dr MICHELLE BRENNAN,
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4,