Tallaght hospital official fails to get injunction to stop inquiry

A senior executive at Tallaght hospital, Dublin, has failed to obtain a High Court injunction stopping an inquiry into complaints against him by an emergency department consultant.

John O’Connell, executive director of human resources and acting chief executive of the hospital when complaints were first made, claimed he was denied fair procedures by the reopening of a complaint from Dr Jean O’Sullivan. The hospital denied his claims and opposed the injunction.

Mr O’Connell claimed the intervention of the minister for health in 2014 prompted the hospital to investigate the complaints rather than make the kind of balanced assessment he was entitled to expect.

Dr O’Sullivan, who first complained about the level of patient care in 2011, made a written complaint to the minister in late 2014 claiming victimisation because she was a “whistleblower”. Mr O’Connell denies all the allegations and said the inquiry is contrary to an agreement they could not continue because they were at least 4½ years old.

The complaints were first made by three emergency department consultants in 2011 and 2012, and Mr O’Connell denied them all. The only outstanding one is that of Dr O’Sullivan, the court heard.

He claimed the hospital failed to progress the complaints in any real way. The court heard the complaints were to be dealt with by an internal inquiry set up under the hospital’s “dignity at work” policy.

Mr Justice David Keane said there was undoubted inordinate delay in progressing the inquiry but he was satisfied “no step has yet been taken in the process” that cannot be cured.

Bullying complaints

He disagreed with Mr O’Connell that a reasonable timeframe for dealing with bullying complaints, of six months, should have been implied from the dignity-at-work policy.

Mr O’Connell had failed to raise any meaningful issue that the complaints against him the hospital proposed to investigate were made “out of time” and would not therefore be pursued, the judge said. He rejected Mr O’Connell’s claim the hospital made a binding agreement with him the complaints were out of time. He found, while there had been inexcusable delay in the operation of the policy, Mr O’Connell had failed to make a clear case as to why the inquiry should be halted.

If Mr O’Connell pursues his main action with vigour, and establishes by evidence some incurable prejudice he had suffered by the delay, there was no reason to suppose he could not then obtain a permanent injunction and pursue his claim for damages, the judge said.