SANCTIONING two public inquiries in a single morning against the backdrop of a catastrophic second Covid wave sums up the utter dysfunction of the Northern Ireland health service.
It also points to something much more worrying however, as inquires like these are only ordered when answers or "truth" cannot be found through other mechanisms such as independent reviews.
Yesterday's bombshell announcement by Robin Swann guarantees that witnesses will be legally compelled to give evidence in relation to the work of two hospital consultants, Mr Aidan O'Brien and Dr Michael Watt.
The ordering of the urology and neurology inquiries also comes just two months after a separate public inquiry was announced into the Muckamore Abbey Hospital abuse scandal, which is now the biggest criminal investigation of its kind in the UK.
At the centre of the three controversies are vulnerable patients and their families.
The discovery that their loved ones are the victims of possible serious medical negligence is traumatising enough. However, this is further conpounded by a culture in which silence, cover up and protecting reputation's ahead of transparency appear endemic.
Mr Swann's pledge to get "answers" for victims comes almost three years after the north's longest running public inquiry into the deaths of five children concluded the health service had a culture "which concealed error" and in which parents were "deliberately misled".
Sir John O'Hara QC's findings of the watershed hyponatraemia inquiry related to failings committed almost 20 years ago, yet he found witnesses had to have "truth dragged from them" decades later when giving evidence during public hearings.
While offering his "unreserved" apologies in September to Muckmore families, Mr Swann acknowledged victims need more than apologies.
"They want and need and deserve answers as to why this happened and how it was allowed to happen - and I hope that the public inquiry I have announced today will give them those answers."
Decades on from hyponatraemia and at a time when public confidence in the system is severely eroded, the need for openness from those in power has never been more important.
