Maternity warning - Heavy price of inaction

During the early stages of our economic crisis, one of those people so essential in any civilised society — those who can express hard truths with scathing humour — came up with the phrase: “implementation deficit disorder”.

Today we report on another outbreak of that terrible weakness, though it was not at all funny because it may have contributed to the loss of life.

A 2006 hospital report recommended that Portlaoise Hospital maternity services come under the control of Dublin’s Coombe Hospital. Had that advice been followed, would the babies who died at the unit be alive? No one will ever know but it is hard not to think that they might be.