25 families are preparing to sue the HSE for damages after their relatives allegedly caught Covid-19 and died in State-run medical facilities, as well as private nursing homes.
According to the State Claims Agency (SCA), the claims are specifically relating to hospitals, community health units and private nursing homes.
Although the nursing homes were privately-owned, it is alleged that the HSE could be liable in certain instances where it was asked to act early in the pandemic but, at least in some claimants’ view, failed to do so quickly or effectively.
According to the Irish Independent, back in August, law firm PA Duffy claimed that 30 families had taken cases against private nursing homes over what they believed to be wrongful deaths. However, in many of these cases, the HSE is also proposed as a defendant.
“Pre-action letters have been sent to both individual nursing homes and the HSE in cases where it is alleged that both service providers are jointly responsible for the provision of care to residents,” said Enda McGarrity, of PA Duffy
Solicitors, as reported by the Independent.
“In addition, the HSE have an overriding duty to intervene in circumstances where a private home is unable to meet the care needs of its residents.
“We are aware of a number of circumstances during the pandemic where the HSE were asked to intervene in the early stages of Covid-19 outbreaks but failed to do so in a timely or effective manner. This presented an opportunity for early and decisive action to prevent further deaths which was regrettably missed.”
25 families to sue HSE after loved ones caught Covid in State-run care https://t.co/TvUUS07I5f
— Irish Independent (@Independent_ie) October 26, 2021
The HSE is also facing as many as three legal claims over employees who allegedly caught Covid-19 at work.
Between March 2020 and February 2021, an estimated total of 1,543 people reportedly died of Covid-19 in Irish nursing homes, with 369 of those having occurred in just the month of January 2021.
By February of 2021, a mere 10% of vaccinations administered by the HSE went to nursing home residents, who accounted at that time for almost 50% of the covid deaths, with the vast majority of the remainder going to healthcare staff. Nursing Homes Ireland called this a huge “missed window of opportunity” at the time.
On March 31st 2020 the HSE released a memo restricting the availability of coronavirus tests in nursing homes. This happened three weeks after Gript was the first (and at the time only) news outlet to report that the HSE was telling nursing homes to continue admitting visitors. The memo contained no recommendation for the isolation, or special care, of coronavirus patients.