Privacy of family at centre of Mullingar hospital incident must be respected: Sinn Féin TD

Sinn Féin TD Sorcha Clarke said the privacy of the family at the centre of the Mullingar hospital body incident must be respected.

The Longford-Westmeath TD said: "Any information that can identify that person needs be treated with the utmost confidence,

"Unless the family themselves choose to make further details known and put those into the public domain,

"Yes today it's been breaking news across all morning, but you don't know what that family has been involved in coming up to this situation, you don't know the conversations that they've had with the HSE up until then,

"And that is their right not to disclose that until they choose to."

An investigation will be carried out after the family of a person who died from Covid-19 were given the wrong body.

It happened at Mullingar Hospital last week, while the HSE CEO Paul Reid has apologised to the family involved.

The Ireland East Hospital Group said it was an "extremely rare event" and was fixed once the issue was noticed.

Hospital to carry out review after it releases wrong body to family of Covid-19 victim

The family of a person who died from Covid-19 was given the wrong body by a hospital mortuary last weekend.

The incident happened at Mullingar Regional Hospital on Friday, April 24.

Victims of Covid-19 are put in sealed body bags by morticians due to the nature of the disease, with neither families or undertakers allowed to view the remains.

The hospital called the funeral home moments before the service was due to start to notify them of the mistake.

A mortician had noticed the name of the deceased person on a body bag, even though their remains had been signed out.

A full internal review is now being carried out into the incident at the mortuary of Mullingar Regional Hospital.

In a statement, the Ireland East Hospital Group, which operates the facility, said a mistake resulted in the release of incorrect remains to an undertaker.

It says once detected, the issue was rectified.

The hospital group has apologised for the distress the incident caused to the families involved, describing it as an "extremely rare event."

HSE spokesman said: "I can confirm that on Friday 24, 2020, an incident occurred in the mortuary of the hospital which resulted in the release of incorrect remains to an undertaker. Following detection, the mistake was rectified.

"We would like to offer our condolences to the families and sincerely apologise for the distress this has caused during this difficult time.

The spokesman said: "The Ireland East Hospital Group, along with Regional Hospital Mullingar, have convened their Serious Incident Management Team and are conducting a full internal review. Processes and protocols have been reviewed within the hospital and its mortuary in order to mitigate this extremely rare event from happening again."