HSE failed to contact Savita’s family over leak

The HSE has yet to contact the family of Savita Halappanavar to apologise for, or clarify, how parts of its clinical review into her death were leaked.

After the draft report was leaked on Wednesday, Praveen Halappanavar’s solicitor Gerard O’Donnell wrote to Health Minister James Reilly to underline the hurt caused by the security breach.

In the letter, he said Mr Halappanavar had only learned of the document’s details through media reports.

Dr Reilly responded that afternoon to reassure Mr Halappanavar he would be the first person to receive the final report in about 10-14 days time, and that the leak was not authorised by any official.

However, the HSE — which is responsible for the clinical review into Ms Halappanavar’s death — has failed to contact either Mr Halappanavar or Mr O’Donnell in the two days since the document leaked.

“We’ve heard from the minister but we’ve heard nothing from the HSE. We would have thought they would be in contact with us in some way to offer an explanation as to what happened [in terms of the leak] and to apologise,” said Mr O’Donnell.

“The HSE clinical review team contacted us last week and asked us to become involved, which we politely declined. But we said if a document was available we would obviously like to see a copy,” he added.

Despite numerous media requests the only statement from the HSE over the affair has been to criticise the draft leak as the report’s legal discussions have yet to conclude and may alter the document.

The ongoing row over the leaking of the HSE clinical review, the failure to apologise to Mr Halappanavar, and the wider implications of the draft report on the abortion debate was raised in the Dáil again yesterday.

Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said Ms Halappanavar’s family had been “treated disgracefully and appallingly throughout the entire process”.

The leaking of the document before her husband caught sight of it, she said, was “an act of gross insensitivity” regardless of the legitimate reasons for getting information into the public domain.

“The distress [for the family] is just one episode in chapter after chapter of distress visited on them, not alone by the loss of a wife and daughter, but by the absolute ineptitude and insensitivity in the system in dealing with this matter,” she said.

Taking leaders’ questions, Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin mirrored views expressed by a series of ministers and Taoiseach Enda Kenny on Wednesday by saying the leak was “shameful, unacceptable, and hurtful”.

He said Dr Reilly had “conveyed his personal concerns to Praveen Halappanavar in relation to that matter” and “re-affirmed his commitment to give Praveen the report as soon as it comes into his possession”.