Father of baby born after miscarriage diagnosis says review delay ‘a scandal’

THE father of a toddler whose mother was wrongly told she miscarried him has described delays into a long-standing national review as “an absolute scandal”.

Michael Redmond was speaking after the Irish Examiner revealed an independent review into the crisis has uncovered up to 24 potential cases of miscarriage misdiagnoses.

The review began last June after the father-of-three and his wife Melissa, from Donabate in north Dublin, confirmed staff at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda wrongly told them the pregnancy had not reached full term.

Melissa insisted on a second opinion from her GP, who found a foetal heart beat, and their son Michael was born on March 6 last year.

While the independent inquiry chaired by the vice president of Britain’s Royal College of Obstetrics, Prof William Ledger, was due to conclude its work by December, no report has been made public.

A new deadline of early summer was put forward in a detailed briefing document received by Health Minister Dr James Reilly.

“It’s a scandal, an absolute scandal,” Mr Redmond told Newtalk’s Lunchtime programme.

“It’s very frustrating. We were told it would be done in six months. It didn’t happen. Then we were told it would be by March 31, and that hasn’t happened as well.

“We are very shocked by the figure, we didn’t know if there was going to be more than just us.

“We’re quiet people, we keep ourselves to ourselves, but nothing would have happened at all if we didn’t come forward,” he said. “The grandparents call [his son] Michael the miracle child. He is, but every now and then you look at him and think what could have been.”

The comments were made as the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services (AIMS) Ireland said the miscarriage misdiagnosis cases were the “tip of the iceberg”.

AIMS spokeswoman Krysia Lynch said regardless of the review a nationwide examination of all pregnancy scanning procedures is required: “The full extent of concerns relating to scanning practices in Ireland is nowhere near to being exposed.

“We are hearing stories of all aspects of ante-natal scan screening.”

The miscarriage misdiagnosis review has been criticised for restricting its examination period to post- 2005, meaning large numbers of potential cases have been excluded.

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