Hospitals notify Hiqa of 123 unexpected deaths since September 2024

The notifications received so far include 39 for patients who died in unintended circumstances. File photo

Hiqa has been notified of the unexpected deaths of two expectant or new mothers and 19 stillborn or newborn babies under new hospital reporting rules.

Their deaths are among 123 notifications the health watchdog received since mandatory Patient Safety (Notifiable Incidents and Open Disclosure) Act 2023 reporting requirements came into force in September last year.

The act requires serious adverse events resulting in unanticipated deaths, or outcomes of traumatic births, to be notified to Hiqa by healthcare service providers. 

The notifications received so far include 39 for patients who died in unintended circumstances. They were classified as healthy patients undergoing surgery, patients whose deaths were directly related to medical treatment, or patients who died after a medicinal error.

The deaths also include two women who died “while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of pregnancy". In addition, there were 14 “unintended or unanticipated stillborn children” and five “unanticipated or unintended” perinatal deaths.

There were also three deaths where the cause was believed to be suicide.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

Added to that, there have also been a total of 60 cases where babies were referred for therapeutic hypothermia, also known as neo-natal cooling. Of those cases, 12 were from September 26 to December 31, 2024.

The remaining 48 were — as with the bulk of the other statistics — from the period January 1 to November 10, 2025, in a follow-up release by Hiqa to the Irish Examiner.

The occurrence of any notifiable accident is not necessarily an indication of poor care.

The Patient Safety Act, which was signed into law in May 2023 and came into effect from September 26, 2024, was established to strengthen openness and transparency in the health service and applies to public and private health services.

Irish Patients Association director Stephen McMahon said: “Figures of this nature would not be released in such a timely manner if it were not for the Patients Safety Act. More importantly, however, these figures show there appears to be some potentially very serious problems that need to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

I would hope that these figures are being looked at centrally by the HSE and that in each tragic case, those directly involved, really do have full disclosure about what happened to their loved ones. 

"I would also expect that the health minister is fully aware of all of these figures and that she is actively trying to find out what is going on and what has gone wrong.”

A Department of Health spokesperson said: "Under the terms of the Act, notifications are made to one of two specific named authorities.

"In the majority of cases this will be HIQA.

"Once notifications are received, the relevant authority will follow up, as appropriate.

​"The Department of Health​ is kept updated regarding the completion of incident reviews and the implementation of the recommendations and learning from reviews to improve services.

​"Patient safety is of paramount importance."