Irish Times piece gives insight into the children’s surgeries scandal.
We are now looking at an Irish Times article titled: Temple Street spinal surgeries: Taoiseach says use of unauthorised springs ‘beyond comprehension’.
Shauna Bowers, Martin Bowers and Marie O’Halloran are credited as the writers.
The article follows the comments made by Taoiseach Micheál Martin in the Dáil following the revelation that unauthorised springs were used during spinal surgeries for children in hospitals run by Children’s Health Ireland.
The headline compounds the articles content. This is an ongoing scandal, here is what the big authority figure has to say about it. A story as big as this can get away with that kind of headline as it is a follow-up on the story itself.
The illustration used is quite on the head with its use of the child caricature but with a story like this you must hammer home the severity. Its graphic nature also serves as a good hook for those who may not be familiar with the story.
A worry for me initially was with there being three contributors could there be a creative clash between their styles of writing that could spill out. That thankfully doesn’t appear to have been the case.
The inclusion of Bowers video report in the body of the article was positive I think, people may just want the crash course rather than the lecture and short phone-based videos like this help keep people informed even if they don’t necessarily have the time to go through a whole article.
The articles content can be covered with this sentence. This is what happened, this is what everyone is saying about it now. Doing so by quoting the Government, CHI, and the Opposition’s reaction to a report from the Health Information and Quality Authority on the matter.
In fairness that is all you can do with this story until more details become known whether that be from CHI themselves or if an investigation or tribunal begins into the matter. The three contributing journalists have done all they can with what is available to them and considering the sensitivity of the story done it very well.
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photo credit @caulmick on X
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