‘Barbaric and inhuman: Savita was left to die’
An inquest jury ruled unanimously that Savita’s death was by medical misadventure.
Mrs Halappanavar was 17 weeks pregnant when admitted to the University Hospital Galway on Oct 21 last year with an inevitable miscarriage. She died from multi-organ failure from septic shock and E.coli, four days after she had a spontaneous miscarriage.
Speaking after the verdict, Mr Halappanavar said there were still some questions he wanted answered and that he had no clarity as to why his wife had died.
He told reporters he would look at taking further action to pursue the truth of what had happened, saying he owed it to his wife and her family to do that.
Mr Halappanavar said that Savita’s family wanted somebody to be held accountable.
He said his wife did not benefit in any way going to the hospital until the Wednesday afternoon when she was transferred to high dependency and onto intensive care.
“It was too late,” he said, after the eight-day hearing.
“The care she received was in no way different to staying at home.
“Medicine is all about preventing the natural history of the disease and improving the patient’s life and health and look what they did. She was just left there to die.
“If Savita would have known her life was at risk she would have jumped off the bed, straight to a different hospital. But we were never told.
“It’s horrendous, barbaric, and inhuman the way Savita was treated in that hospital.”
The couple should have been celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary yesterday.
Mr Halappanavar said he felt doctors could have intervened as soon as they knew the pregnancy was not viable. He said he is still considering action through the courts in Europe as be believes his wife’s human right to life was breached.
The jury at Galway coroner’s court deliberated for two hours and 40 minutes before it returned the verdict and endorsed nine recommendations that were designed to protect patients in the future.
