By Eoin Marsh
The High Court has found that private healthcare personnel used to remove a woman from Howth to St Ita’s Hospital in Portrane were not members of the hospital’s staff as required by the Mental Health Act 2001.
The applicant, identified as E.F., was the subject of an application for involuntary admission on April 24, 2007. After a doctor recommended admission, St Ita’s arranged for personnel supplied by Nationwide Health Solutions to bring her to the hospital.
The woman told her solicitor that she had been forcibly detained after leaving a restaurant in Howth. She alleged that she was “bundled” and “man-handled” into a vehicle, suffered bruising and was not adequately told who the people were or why she was being taken away. Those allegations were part of her case and were not findings made by the court in this judgment.
Hospital records showed that four people supplied by Nationwide Health Solutions were involved: three psychiatric nurses and a driver. The team arrived with the applicant at St Ita’s at 8.15pm. An involuntary admission order was signed shortly after midnight.
The hospital argued that the outsourced personnel could qualify as staff because the assisted admission was planned and supervised through St Ita’s and the Health Service Executive. It also relied on the HSE’s statutory power to contract for health services.
Mr Justice O’Keeffe rejected that interpretation. He found that Nationwide was an independent contractual provider and that its personnel remained staff of that company. There was no direct contractual link shown between the nurses and St Ita’s, and Nationwide retained responsibility for the patient during the removal process.
The judge said it would strain the ordinary meaning of “staff” to treat the private team as staff of the approved centre for section 13(2) of the 2001 Act.
He also rejected arguments that the judicial review was brought too late or had become moot. He said the applicant had moved promptly once the relevant information was supplied and that a declaration could benefit her if similar circumstances arose again.