That kidney being removed, while I don’t really know the ins and outs of that story-sounds to me like a systems error. Do you really think that surgeon did it out of cruelty? For fun? He certainly can’t be that incompetent if he removes a kidney, it’s a difficult op, especially in a child. So you have a highly trained, competent and ethical individual….who made a mistake. Instead of knee jerking and firing him, why not try to find out why this happened? Is there an inadequate pre-op checking protocol? Were the workload and caseload too high? Did another member of staff make a “left/right” error in the notes which he then followed rather than rechecking due to time constraints? did someone mark the wrong kidney on the patient? If you identify the source of the error in the system and correct it, you will save more patients all over the country from similar things. Make it a learning experience for everyone, and not a punitive shameful thing that is hidden away so no-one finds out about it after the person is “punished” for making a mistake.
Unfortunately, too often the Irish confuse “accountability” with “being punished and made to pay”.
Here in NZ-I am responsible for my actions as a doctor. But if something goes wrong I know that I and everyone involved will learn from it, take steps to prevent it in the future, teach others about this potential mistake and both I and my future patients stand to profit from it, rather than me being punished for being a “bad doctor who makes mistakes”. Hospitals are chaotic, messy places. Medicine is not an exact science. There are many grey areas. If this trend towards punitive accountability in Ireland continues, things will only get worse and worse.

Ex-Pat-that kind of “Fuck all the fucking evil rich doctors and bitch nurses, they’re shite and we should punich them for even existing” attitude is EXACTLY the reason why I, and several colleagues, trained at the Irish taxpayers expense, worked in Ireland for a couple of miserable, awful years and then wised up and left for Oz and NZ, not to return. The kind of adversarial, litigious punitive health system that we have in Ireland currently is partially responsible for why it is so shit. People are so incredibly afraid of making mistakes and so wary of saying anything that could possibly be construed as an admission that something went wrong that the patients and relatives never know the full story, and can never find out any information or reasons why something has happened. As a doctor, when my own father was in hospital, it was even worse. The staff knew that I would question things, one day, in the same hospital where I worked, my father was asking me to tell him what was happening, and I didn’t know, so I started looking at his Xrays. A nurse popped around, whipped it out of my hand, and started yelling at me that it was confidential and I had no business looking at it. I had to fight tooth and nail just to get any info at all. This is not the way it should be in healthcare.
I work in NZ currently, and here a doctor or nurse cannot be sued or taken to court. There is a government funded body called the ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation) that compensates all victims of medical mishaps after a careful inquiry. This is beneficial for a number of reasons:
1)The victim ALWAYS gets compensation and assistance and does not have to go through the stressful and expensive process of getting a lawyer, fighting to obtain medical records, going to court etc, after going through a traumatic event.
2)Defensive medicine is not practiced-again, more beneficial to patients and less strain on finite resources.
3)Less stress for doctors and nurses who can carry out their job without fear. It’s already stressful enough, you know. Death, sickness, anger, long hours all that, yeah?
4)Better relations between patients and medical staff. You don’t guard your every word for fear you will be sued and dragged though the courts and papers. They in turn, know you will be honest and open with them.
5) The above has a knock-on effect of creating a system of open disclosure and honesty. Where I work there is a Customer Service Dept and Patient Advocacy dept. Their sole job is to handle complaints, pull all relevant records, investigate what happened and arrange meetings between docs, nurses and patients to talk about things and answer questions.
The healthcare system here is so amazingly good. It’s a pleasure to work in. Yes, there are some problems, but not like in Ireland. The hours are much better too-the longest shift I do here is only 15 hours long. I have done 50+ hours straight in Ireland with no sleep and no scheduled meal breaks, as part of an overall 100+ hour week. Mistakes happen in that kind of ridiculous environment. How could they not? Rather than malign the frontliners at every turn, why not look closer at why these things happen and try to fix them? The Irish healthcare service is riddled with error prone systems at every turn, and instead everyone says “no, that’s not it. It’s the staff. They’re all cunts” Well that solves nothing. Although it does give other countries with better sense some well trained Irish docs, which is at least beneficial for them!

Don’t mind the video. Listen to the song.

You’re welcome.