23 complaints, including TWO baby deaths but details removed
TWO infant deaths, lack of communication and mismanagement of labour are among the complaints sent to health watchdog Hiqa about the Irish maternity service.
The complaints – submitted by email or letter – were received between 2016 and this year. While it is usual for patients’ names to be removed when releasing documents to the media, Hiqa took the unusual step of removing almost all information from the complaints.
What remains is disturbing. One reads: ‘Background: CP (complainant) baby died.’ ‘Another says: ‘Intervention… too late, resulting in brain damage.’ Another woman reported: ‘Poor quality of care in maternity unit, allegations of neglect, poor hygiene,’ while another complaint reads: ‘Baby did not survive.’
A further complaint appears to concern a maternal death, while five others cited ‘poor communication’.
The 23 complaints in the eight-page document are each given a sentence or partial sentence. This means hospitals where serious and even tragic events took place are not publicly identified.
The complaints span the 17 months since the launch of the National Maternity Strategy, which aimed to address problems in the wake of a series of tragic infant deaths at the Midland Regional Hospital, Portlaoise, and other hospitals.
A senior clinician working on the strategy, said an implementation plan will be submitted to the Department of Health shortly and denied that there have been unnecessary delays. However, a maternity advocate disputed this and called on the Taoiseach to fund the maternity services fully.
Dr Peter McKenna, former master at the Rotunda maternity hospital, was appointed clinical director for the Maternity Strategy in March. He said he was disappointed to hear of these complaints but told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘I am optimistic the strategy will address problems this year. There are four issues we see coming up in reviews. These are lack of communication, oxytocin [used to bring on labour] instrumental deliveries and use of CTG.’ He added: ‘Hospitals are developing formalised CTG training.’
CTG traces monitor a baby’s heart during labour but inaccurate readings have been linked to infant deaths. At Portlaoise Hospital, for example, the MoS reported that documents – released to the Molloy family after the death of their son Mark – showed training was inadequate and badly attended.
Dr Krysia Lynch, from maternity lobby group AIMS Ireland, said: ‘It’s disappointing the strategy is not being rolled out. Leo Varadkar championed the strategy when he was in Health. I’d call on him to ensure that the strategy is adequately funded and can be rolled out.’