Paul Reid has said the "biggest regret" of his career with the HSE service was the deaths of staff from Covid-19 during the pandemic.
Mr Reid confirmed that he will step down as HSE CEO next month, after serving over three years in the top position. He told RTE's Claire Byrne Today that his reasons for stepping down are to "spend time" with his family and so that the HSE may enter its next stage post-Covid.
Mr Reid said: "When I did take up the role I signed up for a five year contract and that was always my intention. What I didn't know at the time was nobody knew we would be facing into a global pandemic, and nobody knew we'd be dealing with a cyber attack, so there's no doubt many things came differently than we thought."
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Mr Reid said that he was "very satisfied" that during the pandemic they accelerated the reform of the public healthcare system. However, Mr Reid said that medical staff who died due to the Covid-19 pandemic "paid the ultimate price with their lives."
Mr Reid said that he had spoken with family members of medical staff who lost their lives to Covid, and the families said that they all wanted to go to work during the pandemic. He added: "That is one thing that I wished never happened.”
In addition, Mr Reid also said the described the deaths of elderly people in nursing homes during the pandemic “breaks my heart”, and when asked about what could have been differently he acknowledged that congregated settings were not the place to be during a pandemic.
Mr Reid said he looked back with “tormented learning”. Meanwhile, Mr Reid also denied that his decision to resign had anything to do with his relationship with the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly.
Mr Reid said he had enjoyed a professional relationship with all of the Ministers and politicians with whom he had worked in the past, and he repeated his commitment to Slaintecare and said that the pandemic had been an opportunity to accelerate “a lot of reform.”
“I’m really proud of how staff worked at pace during Covid and implemented changes,” he added. When asked about the Cervical Checks controversy, Mr Reid described how it was a "really difficult period" and also apologised on behalf of the HSE to women and their families for what happened during that time.
He said: "What I really want to put on the record is my appreciation for the representatives of the 221 group. They have shown tremendous leadership, they have worked with us over the past three years to strengthen the service and rebuild public trust in that service and for me, that's amazing leadership. They could have chosen to walk away but instead chose to stay to work with us through that period."
When asked about the coming winter months and a possible 'twindemic' of flu and Covid-19 in hospitals, Mr Reid said there are knowns and unknowns to consider. He said: "We know we're heading into the winter with high levels of activity in hospitals that we had never had, we actually had winter activities throughout summer and March with the impact of Covid and delayed care, so going in a lot hotter in our health system.
"What we don't know is the impact of flu, because in New Zealand and the southern hemisphere they did see high levels of flu activity because people are out and about more in the last two years, but it didn't transfer into the same level of hospital activity. Now we don't know how that might transpire here, and secondly the unknown is Covid the one thing I've experienced throughout Covid is you never know. But you would expect for the winter period more people transmission."
Mr Reid said he has no immediate plans when he finishes work with the HSE. “For the first time in my career I don’t know what’s next.” The first thing he is going to do is visit his three-year-old granddaughter in Texas. “After that we will see,” he concluded.
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