Martin must resign, says Bronagh’s grandfather
“Four reports were commissioned into my granddaughter’s death and not one iota has changed. We are still waiting for one of them. If anything, the situation has got worse since then. I called for Micheál Martin’s resignation at the time of her death, and I do so now again.
“He has to be incapable of running the health service. No man could be doing this out of malice,” the 63-year-old said.
Mr Livingstone offered his condolences to the Ruddle family who lost their two-year old daughter Róisín on Tuesday morning.
The two-year-old died after being turned away from Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin for a heart operation because there were no intensive care unit nurses to watch over her after the operation.
“For them to drive all the way from Limerick to Dublin with all that hope and worry and then be told there are not enough nurses, get back in your car and drive back to Limerick, it doesn’t make sense.
“He talks about opening centres of excellence. Well Crumlin is a centre for excellence and yet only 13 of its 21 beds are in use because there are no staff. Who is responsible for providing the money to staff this centre of excellence? The Minister. If he can’t put staff in intensive care what hope do we have,” Mr Livingstone said.
He said Denise, his daughter, who gave birth to Bronagh in the back of an ambulance during a 25-mile trip to Cavan General Hospital after she was refused treatment in Monaghan Hospital was “not the quarter of the girl she used to be”.
“She just mopes about, goes the grave each evening to put flowers on her daughter’s grave. But we are getting by. She was very angry when she heard about Róisín’s death and it brought it all back to her.
“Lack of staff comes down to finance and that rests with the Minister for Health.
“He must resign, you would not get these conditions in a third world country,” he added.
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