Happiness of our daughter's birth 'overshadowed' by wife's death, says Ayaz Ul Hassan

Ayaz Ul Hassan outside the coroners cour in Swinford, Co Mayo.

The husband of a woman who died just hours after giving birth at Mayo University Hospital has said the happiness of having their daughter is “overshadowed” by her death.

Nayyab Tariq, 28, died on March 22 last year at Mayo University Hospital, having given birth four hours earlier.

A verdict of medical misadventure was returned by an inquest into her death yesterday by Mayo coroner Patrick O’Connor.

A review of her care, commissioned by Saolta hospital group which oversees the Mayo hospital, found delays in care “may have contributed” to her death. The hospital has apologised for “any failings or shortfalls in the standard of care provided”.

Her husband Ayaz Ul Hassan said there were no problems during her pregnancy, that everything was normal with the exception of being alerted to a low platelet count towards the end of the pregnancy.

Nayyab Tariq

He said: “We went into the hospital expecting the best day of our lives, and it just turned out to be completely the opposite. 

"That happiness part is overshadowed by the news that I received on that day.” 

Recalling the moment their daughter was born at 6.09pm, he said: “With the delivery of the baby, there was a gush of blood, part of the blood had tricked down the right-hand side of the bed. 

My concern was I had been asking questions, and it clearly wasn’t [a concern] for the medical staff who were there at that time.” 

Mr Ul Hassan said the staff did not realise how serious the situation was until his wife was moved to the operating theatre from the delivery room. He knows now one of the anaesthetists noticed there was no correlation between the number of medications they were applying and the recorded blood loss, he said.

He recalled being told around 9pm that his wife was in trouble, and he said it was difficult as the communication between him and the hospital staff had been limited, even though he was right there in the hospital, holding their baby.

Referring to the findings of the hospital review, he also said: “When they speak about miscommunication, it wasn’t between Nayyab and the doctors. It was between the staff among themselves.” 

Mr Ul Hassan, originally from Pakistan, has been in Ireland since 2002, living in Cork and Mayo.

He said the couple met in Pakistan through their parents in 2014.

Straightaway we knew this was going to be a lifelong relationship, we clicked straight away.”

They married in February 2017, and she arrived in Ireland the following February on their one-year wedding anniversary, following the visa application process.

He said her flight to Ireland was her first time flying, and she was both nervous and excited at the prospect.

“It wasn’t easy for her to leave all her friends and family behind, to move over," he told RTÉ’s Joe Duffy today.

"I remember meeting her at the airport, her first thoughts were it is very cold here.”