She will rest in peace if justice is done

The name Savita stands for “full of sweet”. She was always full of life and very outgoing. Made friends very quickly. She was very organised, smart.

It was a planned pregnancy. We had planned it for this year. We were on top of the world, both of us.

Everything was going well. We went to bed at 10.30pm. She did not seem to be comfortable. It all started at midnight and in the early morning. When I woke up at 7.30am she said she was getting severe back pain. I immediately rang the hospital and we were told to come in. We were told everything was fine, it was just back pain. We came back and had breakfast. Savita went to the toilet. She came out, she was shocked and had tears in her eyes. She said “Look, there is something wrong, I am not well, we need to go.” Immediately I pulled my jacket and we went to the hospital again. I was told to wait outside the room when they were doing the checks. I saw a nurse looking for a registrar. After a few minutes I was called in and when I went in, I saw Savita in tears. Her heart was broken. I could feel there was something gone wrong. I cant forget her condition at the time. She was saying “Why me? Why me?”. I just held her hand and hugged her and said “it’s OK”. Then the doctor said “Are you ok to talk?” and I said “Yes”. He held my hand and said “It’s a miscarriage, I am so sorry”. He said the baby won’t survive, it’s cervical dilation, the cervix is open.

She just kept asking “why me?” because she had been so happy. She said “Why did God do this to us?”. Then the registrar told me it will all be over in a few hours. I was concerned and asked specifically “what do you mean by a few hours”. He said “maybe four to five hours it will all be over and you can go home”.

Savita was taken for a scan on a wheelchair. All the nurses came and held her hand. They said they were so sorry. They were very kind and sympathetic. They took her into the scanning room. The minute she saw the foetal heartbeat pumping she again broke down, crying. The nurse switched off the monitor. Savita said “I cant take this. Please, I cant take it.” She was broken basically. She could not believe it had happened to her. Every time they did a scan or a heartbeat check, her heart broke basically. She was in terrible pain.

We came back to the ward and they came and said “sorry the foetus is still alive so we cant do anything”. Savita said “No, I can’t take it. Please terminate.”

They next said check and come back because Savita was so insistent that she basically wanted to go home. We were waiting for the doctor to come back to us on the termination and we were waiting. The doctor came for morning rounds at around 10.30am along with two other junior doctors, a midwife nurse and also we had a close friend visiting us in the room. As soon as Savita saw the doctor she was anxious to know what was the response feedback. The doctor said “Unfortunately the foetus is still alive and it is a Catholic country and we wont be able to terminate.” That is what the doctor said. Savita was insisting she is not a Catholic and she is not Irish either so why impose the law on her.

It all [getting ill] started on Tuesday night, late night at around 12. Her temperature was high, her blood pressure was low and so the on-duty doctor came in, took some blood samples, did an ECG. I was really concerned. They checked the baby this time because [Savita] could not face the scanning process again, with a heartbeat check. They did that and found it was still [there]. Things started getting worse on Wednesday. She was very, very sick. The midwife and nurses were amazing. Support staff was brilliant. They did everything they could. They were so helpful and understood. The doctor got the scanning machine and I saw the monitor. She was trying to scan the womb. I did not see any heartbeat at all of the foetus. In a way it was a relief that she should be fine now, it will all be over in a few hours and we will go home. They took her to the operation theatre and within 10-20 minutes the doctor came back again, gave me an update that when they were putting in the central line, Savita delivered the baby and the placenta also came along with the baby so there was nothing to worry, there was no remains of anything left in the uterus. She said “She is fine”. While I was just talking to her I heard Savita crying. I was concerned and asked if I could go in. I rushed in and found Savita in tears. She said “honey it was a girl”. Some nurse there had told her it was a girl. She had wanted a girl, she had thought of a name. She loved girls. She was in shock, in pain. Then they said they were moving Savita to the high dependency unit. I waited there for nearly half an hour and then went in. She saw me and asked had her parents reached home safely. I said “yes, I received a text from your brother”. That was the last words I had with her.

On Thursday afternoon, I managed to talk to the doctor. I was told Savita had picked up septicaemia, septic shock. I did not know what it was. I presumed it was the shock she went through when she had a miscarriage or when she came to know it was a girl child. He told me she is critically stable. He said she was on antibiotics and explained to me what they are trying to do.

Every time I went into ICU they kept telling me she is critically stable. Then on Friday they started telling me she is critically ill. They told me she is young, she will fight it. That is the confidence I had at the time. I thought she will be fine, she will come back for her father if not for me. On Saturday things had really gotten worse. They were talking about putting her on dialysis to see if it would improve the infection. She looked really sick. She was very ill. On Saturday morning the doctor asked me to come into his office. He said that “I think you should tell people, her family that she is very, very ill”. At around midnight, 1am on Saturday, the nurse came looking for me. By this time I had told all my friends and there were 30-40 of them waiting outside with me in the ICU. I had just gone to the chapel to pray for her to get well soon. I just came up and the nurse was looking for me. She took me and while we were walking the corridor she held my hand and said “Are you OK to be next to Savita for her last few minutes? I think we are losing her”.

I felt like everything was just numb, the end of the world. I walked in. There was a big team, they were trying to pump her heart. The minute the doctor saw me she came and held my hand and said “You know what’s happening”. I said “yes”. She said “We are losing her, she is dying.” In another five minutes we lost her. I was still in a shock. I just told them please try again.

She wanted to live, have babies. I still can’t believe she is not with us.

[Asked if he believed she would still be alive if she had a termination] Of course, yes.

We want to know the truth. The whole family is waiting. We just can’t believe in the 21st century that something like this could happen.

We are not confident about the HSE leading this investigation because we think there will be some kind of bias so we are requesting a public inquiry funded by the Government. With due respect to the head of the inquiry and the Taoiseach we will not partake in an inquiry by the HSE. I have seen the way my wife Savita was treated so I have no confidence the HSE will do justice.

There was nothing happening for two weeks [after Savita’s death]. I had to answer the family back home. They just kept asking “have they taken any action?”. Everyone in the family was in shock. When they couldn’t save the baby, why wait? We wanted to have the baby. We kept asking was there any way they could save the baby, put a stitch on the womb, stop the fluid leaking. We were told there was no way to reverse that. So we were insisting, requesting so many times for a termination, but we were not given. I think you need to balance, look at the bigger life. She could have had more babies.

It is horrendous and terrible. I pray to God that it shouldn’t happen to anyone else. Someone else should not go through the trauma that our family and my wife went through. She will rest in peace if justice is done and the law is amended.

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