Before the meeting is concluded, I wish to read the following statement on behalf of the joint committee.
The Joint Committee on Health and Children is strongly critical of the Harley Medical Group for its refusal to attend a meeting of the committee to discuss the PIP breast implant scandal which involved breast augmentation on Irish women using non-medical grade silicone. The Harley Medical Group, a UK-based group with a clinic in Herbert Place, Dublin, carried out 1,159 such procedures on Irish women. The group has not complied with requests by the Minister for Health and the chief medical officer, to ensure that all its Irish patients who wish to have these implants removed will have this work done at no additional cost. The other two medical clinics which carried out similar procedures in Ireland have co-operated with the Minister's requests.
This committee is extremely disappointed that the Harley Medical Group has refused the invitation to attend the committee. While we received a less than satisfactory statement from the group, we wanted to explore with its representatives the reasons for the refusal to replace these substandard implants at no charge for their Irish patients. This shows a blatant disregard for the duty of care to its patients. Quite frankly, the decision neither to attend our meeting nor to partake in our series of meetings is not good enough. While we welcome the very generous commitment by the Minister for Health and the chief medical officer that removal procedures will now be carried out by the State, we urge the Minister to pursue the Harley Medical Group nationally, internationally or through the courts if necessary, in order to recoup the full costs associated with the procedure.
We also urge the Minister to seek clarification from the company responsible for granting the quality mark to the product as to its procedures and liability cover in respect of quality assurance. It is completely unacceptable and unsatisfactory that private operators can operate in this country, come in and out as they please, perform procedures and then abdicate their responsibility - to the women as in this case - when it suits them.
The committee calls on the Minister to bring forward legislation which will fully regulate the cosmetic surgery industry to ensure that the health of Irish patients is sacrosanct over profit.
I thank the members for their ongoing participation in meetings and we will review this issue at the meeting in September. I wish everyone a safe and pleasant holiday.