THE HEALTH Service Executive has established an internal inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of at least 20 children in care over the past decade.
The high-level review group which was set up in recent weeks has been asked to re-examine the cases, identifying any key issues common to the deaths and to make recommendations to the HSE’s national director.
Of the 20 deaths, key questions surround the deaths of about 11 children who died as a result of drugs overdoses, assaults, or suicide. A significant number of these children were placed for long periods in the “out of hours” service, aimed at providing short-term accommodation to small numbers of homeless children.
This “out of hours” system has been repeatedly criticised by social workers for failing vulnerable young people due to its lack of structure and support.
Among the children in care who died in recent years are:
*David Foley, a 17-year-old who died from an overdose three years after he voluntarily sought care from the State;
*18-year-old Tracey Fay, who was placed in more than 20 different care settings over the course of a four-year-period and later died of an overdose;
*Kim Donovan, a 15-year-old girl who was found dead at a city centre BB from a suspected drugs overdose.
These three young people, or their advocates, had sought greater support from health authorities in the years before their deaths. Health authorities commissioned reports into all of these deaths, yet none has ever been published.
A spokesman for the HSE said at the weekend that the high-level review group is expected to finalise an interim report in early autumn which will be made publicly available. The move follows calls from a number of quarters for more openness and accountability regarding the care system.
The Department of Health and Children and the HSE have been accused by Opposition TDs such as Fine Gael’s Alan Shatter for being “obsessed by a culture of secrecy”.
The Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan, has also expressed concern that there are no automatic investigations into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of children in general.
She has circulated an options paper to the Government and other relevant organisations which sets out how a child death review group could be established. Its aim would be to reduce or eliminate the number of preventable child deaths.
This follows a number of tragic cases brought to the attention of Ms Logan’s office where no independent review took place or key questions remained unanswered about the circumstances of children’s deaths.
Similar arrangements are in place in other jurisdictions such as the UK, US, Australia and Canada. She told an Oireachtas committee last week that she planned to hold a major seminar on the matter later this year.
Minister of State for Children Barry Andrews has said he will consider such a mechanism. He has also signalled that he may publish at least one of the reports into children who have died in the care system in the near future.
In the meantime, the HSE says that the death of any child in care is a serious matter and requires careful and detailed consideration.
It said in a statement that prior to the establishment of the HSE in 2005, individual health boards had procedures in place for dealing with deaths of children in care.
“As part of an ongoing process of standardisation, the HSE is currently reviewing its procedures for dealing with deaths of children in the care of the HSE,” the statement says.