Pregnant mum who died in pills tragedy ‘was let down by social services’

A PREGNANT mother of nine from Co Londonderry who died after taking a cocktail of overthe-counter drugs should have received better care from social services, a family member has claimed.

Aisling Newland (37) who was 30 weeks pregnant with her tenth child was found dead at her home in Edenmore Park in Limavady on August 23, 2016.

Packets of various medicines were found in every room of Ms Newland’s home including some prescribed to her partner and two other individuals.

State Pathologist Professor Jack Crane told an inquest into Ms Newland’s death sitting in Coleraine that she died from bronchopneumonia and acute liver necrosis as well as poisoning by dihydrocodeine, codeine and paracetamol.

The court heard that Ms Newland had been known to a number of services within the West- ern Trust — including social services, addiction services and maternity, but she had a history of not turning up for appointments.

This led to her being discharged on a number of occasions from the addiction service — information which wasn’t always shared or accessible to other services within the Western Trust.

Coroner Patrick McGurgan was critical of the lack of communication between these services, which he said resulted in “missed opportunities” in Ms Newland’s care.

Mr McGurgan also said that the reliance on patients to update different services themselves “highlighted shortcomings” and there had been “insufficient joined-up” communication between services, which included the failure of social services to inform addiction services in 2016 that Ms Newland was pregnant.

The coroner described her death as “a double tragedy” and said that it was important not to forget Ms Newland’s baby, who was at 30 weeks’ gestation.

The coroner said that one of the reasons for the inquest being held was to educate people about the dangers of drugs — including over-the-counter drugs like paracetamolandcodeine—andthe importance of not taking drugs prescribed for other people.

Ms Newland’s aunt and next of kin Donna McLaughlin told the court that she believed her niece was trying to address her addiction problems and was trying to turn her life around so she could keep the baby that she was expecting.

Ms McLaughlin was critical of the level of care she felt her niece received earlier in her life when her first three children were removed from her care for adoption.

“Had she (Ms Newland) got the care she needed then things might have turned out different,” she said.

“Social services let us down a lot,” she added.