Mick Clifford: Why has it taken almost seven years to get justice for deceased son?

The HSE has finally apologised to Cork couple Rebecca Price and Pat Kiely and has announced a review

Pat Kiely and Rebecca Price have been fighting for justice since 2019. Picture: Moya Nolan

Next March, it will be seven years since Rebecca Price and Pat Kiely were put through an ordeal that is the nightmare of any prospective parent.

They agreed to terminate a pregnancy on information that turned out to be false.

Contrary to what they had been told, their unborn child Christopher did not have a fatal fetal abnormality called trisomy 18.

What followed made the unimaginable even worse.

The termination occurred on March 14, 2019.

A few weeks later, Rebecca was handed her file after a briefing from a consultant that did not state clearly what had occurred. When she got home she opened the file and was alone when she made the discovery.

There was no further contact from staff in the National Maternity Hospital (NMH), where the termination was carried out, or the private clinic where the original error occurred.

Mr Kiely works as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and is well known for his advocacy for children who have scoliosis. He contacted the NMH master Shane Higgins, once the couple finally realised nobody would be reaching out to them.

“I met him in his office and gave him our experience, word for word, and how we had to make the discovery ourselves of what happened,” Mr Kiely told the Irish Examiner in 2021.

“I told him my belief that this must have happened to other people and we wanted it investigated and a way to ensure that it would never happen again.”

Efforts were made to establish an investigation but various issues got in the way.

Repeatedly stonewalled

After being repeatedly stonewalled, as the couple saw it, they went to a solicitor.

In 2021, the couple settled High Court actions, with medical consultants operating at the Merrion Fetal Health Clinic, the NMH, and a Glasgow laboratory admitting full liability.

None of the consultants was in court when the settlement was read out. It was as if the whole business was simply handed over to the legal people and everything else was parked or brushed under some convenient carpet.

There was no investigation following the settlement. The couple didn’t let up. They met the minister for health at the time, Stephen Donnelly. More recently, they met the current health minister, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill. Previously, they had met Simon Harris when he had the portfolio.

As far as the couple are concerned, they owe it to their dead baby and other parents to ensure that this matter is investigated, lessons learned, the possibility of a repeat completely eliminated.

On RTÉ’s This Week programme yesterday, HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster said he met the couple after being put in contact with them through officials following an initial meeting with Ms Carroll MacNeill.

Public apology

Out of all this came the decision to issue a public apology to the couple and announce a review.

Finally, they are getting an independent review from which there are bound to be learnings that will hopefully ensure no couple ever has to go through what they have endured.

But why did it take so long? Rebecca Price and Pat Kiely have had the good fortune to have another son in the interim, but they still had to keep fighting for justice for their deceased son.

Mr Kiely is a highly valued medical professional working in the HSE. The couple are acutely aware that their knowledge of the system and resources have ensured that they could not be easily fobbed off.

If such citizens had to wait nearly seven years to get what should be done immediately after every major incident in the health service, what chance does the average person looking for answers to major questions have?