‘People will die’: The secret recording, the Taoiseach and turmoil at Cork’s main hospital

“All is not well,” said Taoiseach Micheál Martin of the situation at Cork University Hospital.His words came during a fiery exchange in the Dáil this week about the largest hospital in the southwest region.The hospital has been under public scrutiny over the past three months after its chief executive raised concerns about patient safety risks arising from staffing restrictions.In the first six months of the year, CUH recorded the highest proportionate rise in patients attending emergency departments, up 11.5 per cent, with 47,681 people presenting.READ MOREIn a letter to the Health Service Executive in August, CUH chief executive Jennifer Kearney said she was short 1,000 staff, arguing that the position of the hospital was not “sustainable” going into the winter, when hospitals traditionally must treat more patients.The letter was leaked to the media on August 19th, causing consternation in the higher echelons of the HSE and the Government, while consultants backed their chief executive.Jennifer Kearney, chief executive of Cork University Hospital One day later, on August 20th, a meeting was held between senior HSE officials and senior management and clinicians at the hospital.The minutes of the meeting, reported by The Irish Times on Monday, stated that the offices of the Taoiseach and Minister for Health instructed Andy Phillips, the most senior health executive in the region, to “have some very specific conversations” with Kearney.Speaking in the Dáil on Wednesday, Martin said the account of the August meeting was “false” and his “understanding is the REO [regional executive officer, Phillips] is very clear that at no stage did he make any reference to instructions from the Taoiseach’s office or anybody from the Taoiseach’s office”.Andy Phillips, HSE regional executive officer for Cork and Kerry. Photograph: LinkedIn “False assertions were made about my office and I want to be absolutely clear about that,” the Taoiseach said during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil.The Irish Times has obtained an audio recording of the August 20th meeting, which confirms Phillips did refer to the Taoiseach’s office, amid tense and contentious interactions with staff.“I’m getting angry, which I shouldn’t,” Phillips told Kearney near the end of a more than three-hour meeting. “If you say things, you have to be very clear about your facts. If you start saying things, particularly in the media, which are factually incorrect, there’ll be a very pointed conversation.“Your letter has gone to various media outlets. I just wanted to keep it factual so it wasn’t personal. I’ve been instructed by the Taoiseach’s office and the Minister for Health’s office to have some very specific conversations with you. [ HSE executive instructed by Taoiseach’s office to have ‘specific conversations’ with Cork University Hospital bossOpens in new window ]“I’m trying to keep it light and keep it factual, but if you’re going to say things that get out in public, then you need to have a conversation with me to get the facts right.”It wasn’t just in management that frustrations were apparent. Again and again, the meeting heard representations from clinical directors in which they made claims about patient safety risks.“We cannot deliver timely acute care on-site ... because our hands are tied by the financial constraints,” one doctor said, adding, “people will die”.“If you cannot articulate the frustration that you’re witnessing around the table from clinicians and senior managers, then I really don’t know what your role is in advocating for this hospital. We have to have this frustration voiced at the Minister because this process is not working.”Another doctor described the hospital as being “in a crisis”, while someone said it “beggars belief to think we are attempting to plan for a winter where we currently are”.Phillips said he would not allow people to die due to the issues raised. He repeatedly reiterated that he would continue to advocate for the complexity of cases and demand on all services in CUH, but said official processes were now in place.Senior politicians and health service management robustly deny there are safety concerns. The HSE’s chief clinical officer Colm Henry visited the hospital, as did the national patient safety office. The State’s health services watchdog, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa), will conduct an additional inspection in light of the concerns raised.Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill had said the metrics to measure safety were not signalling anything out of the ordinary, and were on par with other hospitals.Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill. Photograph: Stephen Collins/Collins Following Monday’s article, Phillips, who has been in his role as HSE regional executive officer since March 2024, wrote on LinkedIn that he “completely” defended and supported “any colleague who has any concerns to be able to voice these concerns in an appropriate way”.“Both managers and clinical leaders have a responsibility to take all the actions within their ability to do so in order that patient safety is maintained and enhanced,” he wrote. “Where these actions haven’t been taken, it is the role of more senior leaders to hold colleagues accountable for improvement.“When one version of a conversation with a one-sided narrative appears in the media taken out of context there is a danger that trust is eroded.”LinkedIn post made by Andy Phillips, the HSE's regional executive officer for Cork and Kerry, on Monday This idea was reflected by the Taoiseach’s comments to Social Democrats TD Liam Quaide during Wednesday’s Dáil debate, when he accused others of presenting “inaccurate and untrue accounts” of the meeting. However, Quaide said the recording confirmed the accuracy of the account, and said he “must now correct the Dáil record”.Labour TD Alan Kelly commended Kearney’s outspoken nature, adding that he was “seriously alarmed by some of the sinister developments in response to her having the courage to speak out in the manner she did”.As the August 20th meeting approached the three-hour mark, Phillips announced he was leaving “before I get really, really cross with you guys”.He told Kearney if he has to “go to performance management, I will”. She asked if he was in “threatening mode”, to which he said he was not.“I’m just saying these are performance management issues,” he replied. When she asked what the performance management issues were, he said he would “get into it with you guys personally”.“I’ve tried to be very helpful to you ... but there are things that are not acceptable to Government – not acceptable – and there are some things which are not acceptable to me.”In a statement this week, Phillips said in the course of a “heated exchange” with CUH staff, he did “not accurately represent the situation and this was an error on my part”.Taoiseach Micheál Martin. Photograph: Sam Boal/Collins Photos “I did not receive any instructions from either the Taoiseach or Minister for Health regarding what I should say in this conversation. I should not have suggested that I did and I regret this,” he said.“I would like to apologise unreservedly for this.”A spokesman for the Taoiseach said he takes “very seriously the false assertion that he said anything of this nature”, adding that he “has been unfairly embroiled in a situation that he had not hand or part in”.