Ruddle report may be held to spare distressed parents’ privacy

THE report ordered by Health Minister Micheal Martin into the death of Roisín Ruddle may not be published in full because of concerns for the privacy of the tragic toddler’s distressed parents.

It is also unclear how soon any of the findings of the report will be placed in the public arena although the complete document is expected to be delivered to the minister some time today.

Mr Martin indicated last week that his preference was to have the findings made public but department officials have stressed information could only be released with the consent of Roisín’s family.

Comparisons with the detailed and swift publication of the report into the death of baby Bronagh Livingstone in Co Monaghan last December were not possible, officials said, because in that case the family had gone public and requested full publication.

Two-year-old Roisín, from Ballingarry, Co Limerick, died in her parents’ arms after being sent home from Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin, when her operation for a heart defect was cancelled at short notice on Monday last week.

Doctors at the hospital said that they could not embark on surgery because a shortage of specialist nurses meant there was no intensive care bed available to take Roisín in the critical post-op period.

They said the shortage of intensive care nurses was an ongoing problem, with 45 of the 115 posts at the hospital vacant and a third of the intensive care beds effectively rendered out of bounds as a result.

Opinion differs on where the blame for the shortages lie, and there are also conflicting views on the efforts made to arrange for temporary nursing cover when it became apparent that the hospital could not accommodate Roisín with the manpower available on the day.

Medical staff and administrators at the hospital spent much of last Thursday responding to questionnaires issued by the Eastern Regional Health Authority’s director of planning, commissioning and change, Jim Breslin.

Their responses have been with the ERHA since and the compilation of a report for the minister was continuing yesterday. An ERHA spokeswoman said it was possible the report would be ready for presentation to the minister today.

The Department of Health, however, said that the Ruddle family would have to be consulted about its findings and it could not say when the report would be published or how much information would be released.

The only clear indication that the document would be made public came from ERHA chief executive Michael Lyons who said last week it would be placed on the agenda for discussion at the next monthly meeting of the ERHA in September.