Report on baby's death to be revealed

THE family of tragic baby Bronagh Livingstone will be told tomorrow the reasons for the decisions surrounding her birth and death.

A report into the circumstances in which her mother was refused admission to Monaghan General Hospital in the advance stages of premature labour last week will be on Health Minister Micheal Martin's desk in the morning and he has said the findings will be made public.

However, the report, compiled by three inspectors appointed by Mr Martin, will be received by a Livingstone family already angered and disillusioned with the handling of their case.

Jimmy Livingstone, the grandfather of Bronagh and father of her 32-year-old mother, Denise, said after a two-hour meeting with the minister yesterday that he held Mr Martin personally responsible for his grandchild's death.

Mr Livingstone, who walked out of a North Eastern Health Board meeting on Tuesday in disgust at their refusal to discuss the issue, said his meeting with Mr Martin had yielded no answers.

He said he feared staff at the hospital which has been the subject of a protracted campaign to reverse cutbacks and the withdrawal of services would be made scapegoats when he believed the North Eastern Health Board and, ultimately, the minister were to blame. Mr Martin said afterwards he would wait for tomorrow's report before making any detailed comment, but he was confident it would provide the answers Mr Livingstone sought. He also gave an assurance any action needed to prevent a repeat of the incident would be taken.

Baby Bronagh was born three months early in an ambulance on the way to Cavan General Hospital after her mother was refused admission to her local hospital in Monaghan where maternity services have been suspended in a dispute over budgets. The infant survived the 25-mile journey but died later in Cavan General.

Her grandfather was accompanied to Leinster House by local TDs Paudge Connolly, an independent elected on the Monaghan Hospital issue, and Sinn Fein's Caomghighin O'Caolain, and were greeted by local groups from Monaghan who have been staging midweek demonstrations outside the Dail for the past five weeks.