As the first line of the following says, this isn’t a story you are likely to see covered by the New York Times.
A new sex scandal may be stirring up in Ireland.
On Media Report we read this:
Huge Sex Abuse Scandal Could Erupt in Ireland – But Not in Catholic Church
How come we get the feeling that this story won’t get picked up by the New York Times or 60 Minutes?
An advocacy group in Ireland has announced that it conducted a survey in which 18% of respondents claimed that their doctors “behaved inappropriately” – including “sexual abuse” – during medical treatments.
The scale of sexual abuse by medical practitioners against patients could be far worse than scandals that rocked the Catholic Church, it was claimed yesterday.
So begins an article today (Wed., 3/7/12) on this matter in the Irish Examiner.
The Examiner reports that an organization named Dignity 4 Patients is calling for a government inquiry into the apparent widespread sexual abuse of patients by doctors.Bernadette Sullivan, the group’s executive director, is quoted in the article:
“The scale of numbers a doctor can abuse, as compared to a priest, are huge,” said the former nurse-turned-whistleblower.
Ms. Sullivan also challenged why her group does not receive the same level of financial support as groups who support abuse victims in other areas of society.
“To fail to provide adequate funding to Dignity 4 Patients is to further discriminate, marginalise and neglect patient victims,” Sullivan told the Examiner. “This in itself is abuse.”
Well, it sure seems Sullivan was smart to raise her group’s profile by connecting her issue to abuse in the Catholic Church! That is how you get the media’s attention!
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I posted about this at my blog and a priest told me on Twitter that the newspapers had misreported the story and that he believed that D4P were essentially pleading for gov’t cash. I’m not sure what to think.
Given the findings of the SAVI report (see here: http://www.irishsalem.com/irish-controversies/allegations-against-lay-people/savireport-sunbuspost-07dec03.php ) it wouldn’t be at all surprising if true. However according to the Irish Independent the survey shows that “almost a fifth of patients believe they have been subjected to an inappropriate action or comment by a health practitioner”. The problem with this is that ‘inappropriate’ is a highly subjective term. I can certainly think of comments made to me by my GP that could reasonably be characterised as ‘inappropriate’ but that’s very different from sexual assault or rape.
It’ll be nice to see a focus on something besides the Church having sex abuse concerns.
Awfully tragic that it’d have to come this way though.
In all seriousness, they’ve gone after the Church, now they’re after doctors.
Who’s next? Law enforcement or politicians?
..And you can bet that academia and cultural “elites” STILL won’t admit their own complicity in fostering this sort of rubbish.
If they only let doctors get married, this whole thing could have been avoided.
A young friend of mine in medical school in Dublin states that the students basically have to leave their morals at the door of ethics class. This type of secular attitude is typical. Sorry, to break myths is a hard thing to do–Ireland is the sick man of Europe
jflare said: In all seriousness, they’ve gone after the Church, now they’re after doctors.
Who’s next? Law enforcement or politicians?
You can bet it won’t be public school teachers.
@ Sissy: Amen to what you said!
The media wouldn’t DARE go after public school teachers! What, with their unions standing behind them and all?
And the same ‘thumbs up’ to you, jflare, for your own comment!
The ‘elites’ of academia would never ‘fess up to their misconduct!
The Church is always fair game….but the public schools….never.
Never in a million years!
Hypocrites…..
There is a huge difference from 18% of the Irish believing that they’ve been subjected to an inappropriate remark or worse, and pervasive, severe, widespread, documented, confessed, continuous and even ritualized sexual and physical abuse of children and adolescents. I hope you can draw the distinction; the newspapers clearly have.
I wish I were surprised.
Don’t they have adverts on the telly shouting, “If you’ve been abused by your physician, call the law firm of Dewey, Cheatum & Howe. We have experience in cases like these. We can get you 3X what other law firms promise. There are deep pockets here, and if you call within the next five minutes, we can tie it all to the Catholic church, ensuring a quick and profitable finding in your favor. Don’t delay. Call today. There’s not a moment to lose. “
To whom should the Irish go for justice now that the Church is gone? The remaining institutions of course. Imagine the field day when they investigate abuse of schoolchildren? I only hope someone good is keeping the casualty statistics on depression, alcoholism, drug abuse, divorce and suicide.