Mothers-to-be ‘should not go to Monaghan hospital’

THE North Eastern Health Board has said expectant mothers should not go to Monaghan General Hospital in an emergency relating to their pregnancy.

Women presenting at the hospital in an emergency will be assessed and given ambulance transport to Cavan or Drogheda, but the advice issued for dealing with a sudden medical difficulty is to go directly to the maternity unit in either of the two specialist hospitals.

The board’s blunt message came as the family of baby Bronagh Livingstone prepared for a meeting with Health Minister Micheál Martin to ask why her mother had to give birth to her prematurely in an ambulance after being refused admission to Monaghan General.

The meeting was requested by Bronagh’s grandfather, Jimmy Livingstone, on behalf of the infant and her grieving mother, Denise, and will take place at Leinster House tomorrow at lunchtime.

Mr Martin yesterday received a report from the North Eastern Health Board on the circumstances surrounding the decision to divert 32-year-old Denise to Cavan Hospital after she went to Monaghan General in premature labour in the early hours of last Wednesday.

Maternity services have been suspended at Monaghan in a dispute over budgets and staffing levels, and Bronagh died after being born in an ambulance on the 25-mile journey to Cavan.

Mr Martin has already said he found the incident “disturbing,” but comments yesterday by Alphonsus Kennedy, a consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician at Monaghan General, have raised further questions about the handling of the case.

Mr Kennedy, who has been prevented from practising in his specialist field for more than a year, told RTÉ radio he would have intervened to attend to Ms Livingstone if he had been called to the hospital, even though he was not insured to do so.

He said he would have informed the family he was not insured, but would also have urged them to let him help because he believed he could have made efforts to save Bronagh.

He said state-of-the-art incubators lying idle at Monaghan could have been set up “within minutes” to provide vital care for the vulnerable baby. Mr Kennedy said Ms Livingstone should have been sent to Cavan in an ambulance with an onboard incubator to provide instant heat and life support for the infant.

The long-serving consultant also insisted that a colleague, Dr Rommel El Madamy, had been reprimanded for intervening and using maternity equipment to attend to a number of babies born in emergency circumstances at Monaghan during the suspension of maternity services.

The health board said last night this was not the case.

“Questions may have been asked of him but no reprimand was authorised or issued,” said a spokeswoman.

Mr Livingstone has signalled he will attend today’s scheduled meeting of the health board, but the spokeswoman said last night he had not so far asked to make a formal presentation, although the board’s procedures allowed for suspension of standing orders for this purpose.

Meanwhile, three inspectors appointed by Mr Martin to carry out an independent inquiry into the incident will be examining the health board’s report and meeting staff and officials this week.

Mr Martin has said he will make the findings public, but this is now unlikely to happen before the Christmas recess as the Dáil adjourns tomorrow.

Local groups in Monaghan, who have been staging midweek protests outside the Dáil for the past five weeks, are planning an extra large presence for the last two Dáil sittings today and tomorrow.