Baby girl’s body transferred by taxi for autopsy

The parents of a baby girl who died four days after birth discovered that their daughter’s body was transferred between hospitals by taxi after a newspaper tried to track them down.

Shirley Cosgrave and Tom Lawlor, from Clogherhead in Co Louth, said they were only told that the body had been transferred by taxi from Temple Street Hospital when nurses at the Rotunda Hospital advised them to stay in their ward because reporters from a Sunday newspaper, who had been alerted by a taxi driver, were attempting to establish the identity of the parents.

They were speaking following the conclusion of the inquest of Georgina Cosgrave-Lawlor, who died at Temple Street Hospital on Oct 21, 2010. She was subsequently taken for postmortem to the Rotunda. Her mother was also being treated there at the time.