WIDOWER’S FURY AFTER HOLLES ST PREVENTS HIQA PROBE
Grieving husband outraged after High Court agrees to block inquiry into his wife’s death
THE widower of a woman who died while being operated on at the National Maternity Hospital has said that it is ‘shameful’ that the hospital went to the High Court to block a
Government-approved investigation.
Alan Thawley was reacting after the High Court ruled yesterday that Health Minister Simon Harris was wrong to order a Health Information and Quality Authority investigation into the death of Mr Thawley’s wife, Malak.
Mr Thawley said that the extensive efforts by the hospital to quash the investigation had ‘compounded’ his pain. Judge Charles Meenan said Malak’s death during surgery for an
ectopic pregnancy had been a ‘profound tragedy’ for Mr Thawley.
But he said a HIQA investigation, which Minister Harris had ordered late last year, had farreaching implications for patient and staff confidence.
The ruling is the latest instalment on Mr Thawley’s battle to get an external probe into the death of his wife in May 2016.
At the time, he criticised an internal investigation by a panel made up almost entirely of National Maternity Hospital staff.
Minister Harris ordered a HIQA investigation but the National Maternity Hospital sought a High Court review of the minister’s order.
Yesterday’s decision quashes the HIQA investigation.
Mr Thawley told the Irish Daily Mail last night: ‘The way the hospital has behaved towards me and the way they have handled this has been shameful.
‘What they have done by having to be brought kicking and
‘The hearing was painful for him’
screaming to where we are today is reprehensible. It has served to compound the pain I feel every day since Malak’s death.’
His solicitor, Caoimhe Haughey, who has represented Mr Thawley since May 2016, said last night that she and Mr Thawley never wanted the High Court fight.
‘The hospital has fought and fought at every stage to avoid what now looks likely to be inevitable, which is an external inquiry Alan has been asking for all along. Sadly, he has been dragged through a process that did not need to take place.
‘Where was the compassion in that?
‘It does beggar belief that people who are still grieving for their loved ones have to be treated in this fashion.’
And she added: ‘Mr Thawley obviously welcomes the end of these proceedings.
‘The four-day hearing, revisiting the very tragic and distressing facts of his late wife’s needless and negligent death, was particularly painful for him.
‘He hopes the minister will not be deterred by the hospital’s efforts through the courts to deter him.’
She said she hopes the minister will now focus on arranging a separate, independent investigation by experts from the UK.
‘This underscores the need for mandatory inquests in cases of maternal deaths.’
While Justice Meenan said the HIQA investigation must be quashed, he said it was now time to apply the recommendations which the National Maternity Hospital had already been given from three inquiries to date. And he said a proposed review by experts from the UK’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists ‘should be followed up, so that lessons learnt from this tragedy can be applied across the health service and such a tragic event avoided in the future’.
The judge pointed out that relations between the hospital and the minister had deteriorated since the commencement of the court proceedings.
On the HIQA investigation, the hospital had argued there has already been its own inquiry, a review of that inquiry, an inquest, and civil proceedings brought by Mr Thawley – which were settled last January for undisclosed damages.
It said it believed a HIQA inquiry would be extremely dis- ruptive and have a ‘chilling effect’ on the operation of maternity services.
In his ruling yesterday, Justice Meenan said it was ‘unreasonable’ for the minister to launch a HIQA investigation, when there was no proposed intervention in any other hospital.
He also said he found it ‘inconceivable’ that if the minister really felt there was any risk to patients, he would not have given the hospital specific instructions to reduce the risk, warned other doctors about it, and told the public what he had ordered.
At the opening of the judicial review case this summer, Paul Gallagher SC, for the National Maternity Hospital, had said the hospital had apologised unreservedly on a number of occasions to Mr Thawley over the death of his wife, Malak, who died after her abdominal aorta was torn when a surgical instrument was inserted.