Tony Holohan

Holohan graduated from medical school at University College Dublin in 1991.[1] After training in general practice, he also trained in public health medicine, graduating with a Masters in Public Health (MPH) in 1996. Holohan holds a diploma in healthcare management from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He is a member of the Irish College of General Practitioners (MICGP) and is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (FFPHMI).[11]

Holohan was appointed Deputy Chief Medical Officer in 2001, followed by promotion to Chief Medical Officer in December 2008.[12][13][14][15]

Holohan gained prominence during the 2018 CervicalCheck cancer scandal which involved 206 women in the Republic of Ireland receiving incorrect smear test results for cervical cancer undertaken by the CervicalCheck screening programme, and after having been subsequently diagnosed with cervical cancer, not being informed that a review of their original tests (which was done by exploring all cases that had received negative results but were subsequently diagnosed with cancer) concluded that those tests had been read incorrectly. It was reported that Dr Grainne Flannelly, CervicalCheck's clinical director, had advised a gynaecologist not to advise women about the re-evaluated test results, but to file the results instead.[16] A number of these women sued the Health Service Executive (HSE).

Holohan stated that the Department of Health was aware of CervicalCheck’s stance of not informing some women of the outcomes of reviews into their cases, and that a decision was taken not to escalate the matter to the Minister for Health, telling a review panel: "It was reasonable because the information provided in the briefing notes provided by the HSE to the Department was evidence of ongoing improvement to how the service was being delivered, rather than the identification of a problem which, of its nature, required escalation to ministerial level." [17] Holohan also said he believed the characterisation of the Department of Health, of himself and his colleagues by the media had been unfair, telling the committee: "The Department is far from an organisation that is unwilling to seek proper disclosure to patients, that is unwilling to directly performance manage the HSE, and to escalate appropriately to ministers." and "Any fair assessment of our work record will show that this is simply untrue." [17]

The day after Vicky Phelan publicly criticised the CervicalCheck programme outside the Irish High Court, Holohan felt it was important to address the public concerns about the programme, as any delay "could unnecessarily undermine public confidence in CervicalCheck". He, therefore, advised in an email to the Minister for Health, Simon Harris on 26 April 2018 to sanction an internal report "prepared by Holohan himself" which could have been completed quickly, to establish the important facts of the case before authorizing an external review of the screening programme which would have taken several months to complete. Holohan noted that there was "no evidence at this stage that there are quality or patient safety concerns with the CervicalCheck programme". Harris ignored Holohan's advice and ordered an external review.[18] The HSE confirmed that, as of May 16th 2018, 18 women out of a total of 209 women affected by the Cervical Check programme have subsequently died. This number has increased since this was reported.[17]

On 29 February 2020, Holohan announced the first case of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, the virus responsible for coronavirus disease 2019, and that the resulting pandemic had spread to Ireland.[19] He gave a televised interview to The Late Late Show on 17 April 2020.[20]