An 11-year-old girl who claimed she was violently raped over a period of time by a man known to her, did not receive adequate medical or psychological help from the HSE, an investigation by the Ombudsman for Children has found.

According to the Ombudsman, Emily Logan, between December 2006 and July 2007, an 11 year-old girl ‘made disclosures of multiple instances of severe child abuse'.

"The disclosures included but were not confined to reports of repeated instances of violent rape by an adult male and involved death threats and assault with a knife. As a result of the disclosures, the child's mother engaged both the HSE and An Garda Síochána in order to protect her daughter and obtain therapy and assistance on her behalf," a report into the investigation stated.

However, in May 2009, the child's mother made a complaint to the office of the Children's Ombudsman about the HSE's response to her daughter's disclosures.

"She complained that the HSE had failed to provide psychological and medical services to her daughter in a timely fashion. She stated that because of the HSE delay and inaction in response to the child's needs, she herself had to provide, or push for, many of the services that the child required," the report noted.

The mother also claimed that the HSE failed to maintain sufficient contact with her and when communication did occur, ‘she found the HSE accusatory, confrontational and rude'.

She insisted that the HSE's poor response was harmful to her daughter's mental and physical health and safety.

The Ombudsman's investigation set out to determine whether the HSE's response had, or may have had, an adverse effect on the victim.

It found that the HSE's response did indeed negatively affect the girl. Some of the main problems included:
-The girl had to wait two months for a medical examination because the HSE claimed it could not find an appropriately experienced female doctor to carry out the examination
-No social worker was allocated to the girl
-Records relating to the incident were poor
-No therapeutic or psychological services were provided to the girl.

The investigation also found ‘significant communication difficulties' between the HSE and the girl's mother.

"The HSE did not ensure that the mother was fully aware of their procedures and the relationship between the HSE and the child's mother broke down," it noted.

According to Ms Logan, this breakdown of the relationship between the HSE and the mother ‘became a very real impediment to providing necessary services to the child'.

"The period following a disclosure of alleged sexual abuse by a child is very traumatic for both a child and his or her family. It is imperative that HSE staff communicate clearly and in a compassionate way with parents at this extremely stressful time," she insisted.

She said that the HSE (and in the coming months the Child and Family Agency) must ensure that its staff are adequately trained and supported to respond to families who disclose alleged abuse.

In light of this case, the Ombudsman made 10 recommendations to the HSE, the first of which relates to this particular the child, but the remainder of which relate to the system as a whole. These include:
-The HSE prioritises direct contact with children
-The HSE informs parents about the full range of services available to them
-The HSE has face-to-face contact with families
-The HSE allocates social workers to complex cases
-The HSE reviews the availability, accessibility and gender balance of doctors that are qualified to carry out medical examinations.

The HSE accepted all of the recommendations and ‘committed to undertake them in a timely and coordinated manner'.

However, the Ombudsman was dissatisfied with the level of response she received in relation to four of the recommendations and wrote to the HSE about this.

Ms Logan said that she will ‘assess the progress of these and all recommendations when she carries out a six-month review of the case'.

For more information on the Ombudsman for Children, click here