Father to carry on late wife’s fight for justice
It is little under two weeks since Bernard O’Leary buried his wife and the mother of his four children, Fionnuala.
Yet in a small meeting room at the Silver Springs Convention Centre in Cork, Bernard O’Reilly put aside an overwhelming and raw grief to continue Fionnuala’s work — the quest for answers.
Twelve years ago, Bernard and Fionnuala lost their three-month-old son Michael to a congenital heart defect — finding out years later that his heart and lungs had been removed just hours after his death, without their knowledge or consent. Fionnuala, who later helped set up Parents for Justice, was horrified to discover the organs were still at the Dublin hospital, lying in a bucket of formaldehyde.
Bernard read a submission that his late wife had written for usage by the Dunne inquiry. In the submission, she explained how it had taken her months to put the account together as she kept breaking down and being overcome with overwhelming feelings of loss and anger at the indignity of what was done to her son.
She found out about his heart defect during pregnancy and spoke of how “with every kick against the my uterine wall, I felt a mix of joy and despair” — joy that her son was fighting and despair at the gravity of his illness. Michael was born five weeks premature but proved to be a fighter and doing the most banal things for him brought her immense joy; even just washing his baby clothes and looking at them fluttering on the clothes line. Every day with him was precious, she said.
However, routine exploratory surgery at three months ended his life when he had a massive heart attack on the operating table. His parents were told that a post mortem was to be carried out and that parental consent was not necessary but they were being told as a courtesy.
It was when the organ retention scandal broke that “maybe my maternal instinct told me something was wrong”. Fionnuala rang the hospital and it was confirmed that Michael’s organs had also been taken without her knowledge.
“I was appalled at this discovery... The hospital was evasive when I asked questions, even arrogant,” she said.
She later found it impossible to get a medical certificate with a cause of death. She also found out that the Coroner’s Court was never told of her son’s death and any post mortem had not involved that office. She questioned the quality of care before her son’s death and who authorised the post mortem.
“I was consumed with guilt that I wasn’t able to protect my son... I had nightmares and flashbacks to his burial,” Mr O’Leary read.
His wife, he said, had died with her questions unanswered. Parents for Justice yesterday pledged that the rest of the group would fight until they were answered.
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