'She wasn’t just my wife, she was my best friend'
Nayyab Tariq, 28, died after giving birth to a baby girl on Saturday March 22 last year at Mayo University Hospital.
“She was a great human being, she wasn’t just my wife, she was my best friend,” said the husband of a woman who died hours after giving birth last year in Mayo.
When Ayaz Ul Hassan shares memories of his wife Nayyab Tariq, his voice lightens and the happiness they shared through seven years of love and marriage shines through his grief.
Already committed to working with the hospital to ensure “this cannot happen to someone else”, he wants now to remember Nayyab as she lived.
Generous, brave, friendly, always bringing people with her whether the adventure was living in Mayo after moving from Pakistan, studying in Cork or trying fish and chips for the first time at Dinos in Kinsale.
He laughs as he remembers her face when she bit into the battered fish.
“She’s so used to spicy foods,” he said in comparison to the plainer meal. “But she ate it all, and about a month later she said she felt like having that fish and chips again.”
It became a regular treat, with trips to Roosters Peri Peri in Douglas for spicier fare.
Ayaz had lived in Mayo since 2002 with his family when he met Nayyab in Pakistan through their parents.
“When she was in the room, she would light up the room, that’s what her personality was and you could talk to her about anything,” he said.
He paused and said simply: “We clicked straightaway, and we never looked back after that.”
The couple married in February 2017, and from the moment she arrived in Ireland one year later after the long visa process, their adventures began.
“She was a very sociable person, she would go out and make sure people knew she was there in a nice way,” he said.
“She was always socialising and networking here.”
Ayaz was working in Cork by then. But the couple decided with the “crazy” rental prices in the city, Nayyab would live with his family and he would search for a job closer to Mayo.
“She moved here and in a couple of weeks, she was saying ‘I want to work’,” he said, laughing again.
“She had so many friends in Ballyhaunis. Everyone here welcomed her with open arms, it was like family. She felt like she belonged here.”
Nayyab, a microbiologist in Lahore with their shared passion for science another bond, took on a biopharma processing course in University College Cork to help with her job-search.
“For a couple of months she would stay with me in Cork. I’d drop her to UCC and pick her up, we would go for dinner,” he says, remembering something so normal they took it for granted, never thinking it could disappear.
They visited Kerry, Donegal, Sligo and climbed Croagh Patrick with his brother. Ayaz confesses he hadn't told her exactly how steep Croagh Patrick is, and said even the bags of Taytos and chocolate he produced at the top couldn’t get him out of trouble.
“There were a few more places we wanted to see in 2019 but it was coming into the winter then, we thought we had better wait till the next summer,” he said. “But we never got the chance.”
Shortly before Nayyab graduated in October 2019, Ayaz got a job near Ballyhaunis and they turned their eyes to the future, to planning a family together.
Nayyab has two older brothers and a younger sister in Lahore – she knew from playing with their children she was ready to be a mother.
“She adored children, we were so excited,” he said.
They went into hospital on March 22, 2020, carrying one blue and one pink blanket, ready to love whoever came to them.
But instead, he said: “Never for a moment did I expect that we would go into hospital to have a baby, and that those would be the last moments with my wife.”
After three days at the inquest into her death which returned a verdict of medical misadventure, Ayaz told the Irish Examiner: “It was difficult but I needed to hold myself together for Nayyab, I needed to be strong for my daughter.”
“It wasn’t easy and it is not something that anyone should have to go through. It’s about findings and learnings now, it’s all about the learnings.”
Discussing the high standard of medical care in Ireland, he said: “We should be able to handle scenarios like this. It’s not like this is the first case that happened like this.”
Friends now with Sean Rowlette, who lost his wife Sally in similar circumstances, and supported by the family of Tracey Campbell-Fitzpatrick who also died after giving birth, Ayaz is acutely aware mistakes can be repeated.
“I have made a request to the hospital that I would like to be involved in the implementation and everything they are doing to stop this from happening again,” he said, with determination in his voice.
“That is something I am going to do.”
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