RELATIVES of vulnerable patients allegedly abused at Muckamore Abbey Hospital have repeated a call for a public inquiry.
Action For Muckamore met health minister Robin Swann yesterday at Stormont.
They were left disappointed when he told them he could not yet commit to an inquiry, however.
The pressure group was formed following concerns that a high-level health service investigation failed to hold to account organisations charged with managing and regulating the Co Antrim facility, which is now at the centre of the biggest police probe of its kind into patient abuse.
Glynn Brown, who heads the group and was the parent who first raised the alarm after his vulnerable non-verbal son, Aaron, was allegedly assaulted by a staff member in August 2017, said public confidence had been lost in the health service.
Former UUP leader Mr Swann - along with other party heads - wrote a letter last summer endorsing a public inquiry.
Solicitor Claire McKeegan of Phoenix Law, who represents Action For Muckamore and attended yesterday's meeting, insisted an inquiry could run in tandem with the PSNI probe by examining the "systemic" failings, saying that any decision to block it "flies in the face of public interest".
She said families were emotional when told that the minister could not yet meet their request.
Ms McKeegan said campaigners urged Mr Swann to make good on commitments to the patients and their families months before devolution was restored.
"Only a public inquiry with full powers to compel documents and evidence will get to the truth of how management and all the organisations involved, the hospital trust, Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority and indeed police who were aware of allegations at certain times, only that type of robust investigation will get to the truth of why they have been failed and how this was allowed to happen," she said.
