Maternity hospital inquiry welcomed

Roisín Molloy, whose son, Mark, died after being born at the Midland Regional Hospital in Portlaoise two years ago, says she is happy with the scope of the health watchdog’s investigation of the hospital’s maternity services.

Ms Molloy was commenting on the publication yesterday of the Health Information and Quality Authority’s (HIQA) terms of reference for its inquiry into maternity services at the hospital after the death of five babies since 2006.

Ms Molloy, who described the terms of reference as comprehensive, said the investigation was needed to establish why healthy babies continued to die at the hospital and no one said “enough was enough”.

She was especially happy that HIQA would investigate national health and safety issues within the HSE, not just at Portlaoise.

Ms Molloy, speaking on RTÉ radio yesterday, said a number of issues had already been identified by the HSE’s own investigation.

Last month the hospital’s clinical director, John Connaughton, apologised to the parents of babies who died.

His apology followed the publication of a report by the Department of Health’s chief medical officer, Dr Tony Holohan, which found serious safety shortcomings at the hospital.

The report also found that patients and families were treated in a poor and, at times, appalling manner, with limited respect, kindness, courtesy and consideration.

Ms Molloy said, up to now, those responsible were trying to desensitise the issue by describing what happened as a system failure, an incident.

“It goes back to the basics, if you do something wrong, a patient is entitled to know what happened,” she said.

Ms Molloy said she wanted to find out what happened to her child and to ensure it won’t happen again to someone else’s child.

HIQA will also investigate whether Portlaoise hospital and the HSE had learned lessons from the investigation into Galway University Hospital following the death of Savita Halappanavar.