That f inal kiss with my tragic wife Malak

Widower has ‘no faith’ that hospital ‘can f ix own issues’

FATHER-to-be Alan Thawley was still hoping against hope that a miracle would save his pregnant wife’s life when doctors gave him the devastating news that she had died.

And in a deeply moving statement written for the inquest last week into his wife Malak’s death, IT worker Mr Thawley revealed that the most abiding memory of his wife was the last kiss they shared before she walked into a theatre.

The inquest found that Malak had died at the Dublin’s National Maternity Hospital as a result of a medical misadventure.

Syrian-born Malak was seven weeks pregnant when she died on May 8 last year and a verdict of medical misadventure – or an accident that results from a risk

Early pregnancy scan was a birthday gift

voluntarily taken – was delivered by the inquest into the young teacher’s death.

But in a three-page statement, part of which was delivered outside the Coroner’s Court by Mr Thawley’s solicitor, Caoimhe Haughey, Mr Thawley said he had no faith in the hospital’s management.

The chairman of the National Maternity Hospital’s board, former High Court judge Nicholas Kearns, said the hospital had unreservedly apologised for shortcomings in the care given to her.

He insisted a ‘robust internal review’ had begun the day after the young woman’s death and also stated the hospital was ‘determined to continue to implement all we have learned from this investigation in our clinical practice’.

Last night, the Irish Mail on Sunday understood four or five remaining recommendations that need to be implemented are in the process of being implemented.

Meanwhile, Mr Thawley was too upset to attend his wife’s inquest but in his statement the widower said: ‘The only meaning my wife’s death can have is to ensure problems are rectified.

‘I have no faith whatsoever that the hospital itself can fix its own issues.

‘My wife was extremely healthy, extremely fit and a wonderful human being. I vividly remember her walking away from me to go into surgery.

‘I had no idea it would be the last time I’d ever kiss her. I would give anything in my earthly possession to be able to kiss her just more time. All I care about are the actions of the hospital in response to my wife’s death.

‘That would actually bring me some closure.’

He added: ‘The night of my wife’s death, while I was at the hospital waiting for updates and still hopeful that my wife could make a miracle recovery, the master of the hospital along with another doctor walked in to inform me that my wife had died.

‘They told me that it was death by medical misadventure. It was a term I had never heard before but it is something I will never forget.

‘If they told me that within minutes of my wife dying, why are we here 13 months later?’

At the time of her death, Malak, 34, was expecting the couple’s first child.

The pair were so overjoyed at the prospect of becoming parents, that Mr Thawley paid for a scan as a birthday gift to his wife.

However, it was this scan that revealed she was not having a normal pregnancy. It showed that the pregnancy was not developing inside the womb but rather in one of her fallopian tubes.

She went into hospital at 2pm on May 8, 2016, and died shortly after 8pm following a standard laparoscopic surgical procedure.

Staff and equipment had to be called in from St Vincent’s and another hospital.

The subsequent report, by the hospital’s clinical governance executive committee, made 20 recommendations, including that the facility should co-locate to a general hospital.

‘Why are we here 13 months later?’