Opinion

Seanín Graham: Family's pursuit for truth into 'cover-up' around daughter's death continues with new inquest

Seanin Graham 2.jpg.
Seanin Graham 2.jpg. Seanin Graham 2.jpg.

AT 7.15am on the morning of the publication of Northern Ireland's longest-running public inquiry into the hospital deaths of five children, Alan Roberts asked a legal representative if just "two words" were in it.

Families had been given advance copies of the weighty 684-page report which set out in devastating detail the repeated failings into their children's care in "a culture which concealed error".

For Mr Roberts - who was singled out by inquiry chairman Mr Justice O'Hara for his "telling" lay research into the catastrophic overdosing his little girl had received - those critical two words were now in print.

While four of the five children's deaths were found to be preventable, the case of Claire Roberts was the only one in which the High Court judge concluded there was an attempted 'cover up' by two senior consultants responsible for the nine-year-old's treatment.

The highly respected judge went further by saying the Roberts were "deliberately misled" by doctors who failed to refer their daughter's death to the coroner because they didn't want to "draw attention to possible failings".

The adventure-loving child, who was "thriving", had gone to school on a Monday morning and sat singing as she watched her classmates swimming. By Wednesday, she was dead. Doctors told her parents that "everything possible" had been done and she had died from a brain virus.

For the Roberts family, the announcement that a fresh inquest is to be held into their only daughter's death is a crucial development in their pursuit for truth.

It also marks the beginning of a process in which they hope there will be full accountability and will extend well beyond the medical profession to managers and administrators who worked in a "largely self-regulating and unmonitored" health service.

With the Department of Health announcing that "concrete work" is underway in response to the O'Hara recommedations and the PSNI launching a fresh probe, it can only be hoped that the NHS 'concealment' culture is a thing of the past.