Cullinane calls for 'accountability' over NAS allegations

Sinn Féin health spokesperson David Cullinane has called for accountability after more than 30 women alleged they experienced sexual harassment, misogyny, bullying or intimidation while working in the National Ambulance Service (NAS).

An unpublished Health Service Executive (HSE) internal review obtained by the RTÉ’s Prime Time also raised concerns about the culture and leadership of the service, including references to bullying and harassment and what it described as a traditional “command and control” management style.

The report, carried out by the HSE’s Workplace Health and Wellbeing Unit, has not previously been published or reported on.

Documents obtained by Prime Time also show that concerns about misogyny, gender discrimination and sexual harassment were raised with the Director of the NAS Robert Morton by senior management.

NAS is a part of the HSE in which more than 2,400 staff are employed nationwide.

Mr Cullinane described the issue as “deeply troubling”, adding that there are “very serious questions for those at the very top and senior management levels within the National Ambulance Service” to answer.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Mr Cullinane said this behaviour was “widespread and systemic across the National Ambulance Service” and was taking place “over a long number of years”.

“There has to be an honesty, first of all, about the scale of the problem, and then there has to be accountability,” he said.

Mr Cullinane added: “There was a culture that operated for nearly 10 years where women came forward.

“In fact, some women were advised not to come forward, which itself is also shocking, and that women did not feel safe in that environment.

“These were women – brilliant women – doing fantastic work and their sole duty was to protect patients, but yet they were failed and not protected themselves.

“So, that accountability has to happen at a corporate level, individual level, but also a political level.”

Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has said that women working the NAS “have been let down by the organisation that doesn’t protect them”.

She also declined in response to repeated questions to express confidence in the leadership of NAS.

Minister Carroll MacNeill was speaking in the wake of a Prime Time report in which female paramedics and emergency medical technicians spoke about experiences of sexual harassment, misogyny, bullying or intimidation while working in the service.

The minister said she “acknowledges what the women have described and the fear that they have described, the completely inappropriate… unacceptable environment within which they’ve had to work”.

In response to questions about whether she has confidence in the management of the National Ambulance Service, the minister instead stated she has confidence in retired Major General Maureen O’Brien.

News emerged in recent days that Ms O’Brien has been appointed by the HSE to chair an independent team which will examine “serious issues relating to workplace culture” within NAS over the coming months.