They made us feel as if our baby son had never existed
Couple tell of indignity they suffered following death of their f irst child
A MOTHER has told of her anguish after having to wait three years for her baby boy’s birth certificate while an inquest into his death was continuing.
Claire Cullen and husband Keith lost their son Aaron on May 9, 2016, just five days after he was born.
He was found to have died of pulmonary hypertension and renal vein thrombosis contributed to by acute and chronic hypoxia and mitochondrial myopathy.
A HSE report published in November found a number of failures in his care at Midland Regional Hospital before he was transferred to The Coombe maternity hospital, where he died in his parents’ arms.
A wrongful death case was taken by the Cullens against the HSE and was settled in September. While dealing with the heart
‘I remember my heart sinking into the pit of my stomach’
ache of losing their first child, the Cullen family, from Portlaoise, suffered a lengthy and drawn-out indignity of not being able to have his birth cert.
Claire said: ‘Within a few weeks of Aaron’s death, once we had built up the courage after the most catastrophic, traumatic time in our lives, we made a plan one evening to go through the difficult process of getting Aaron’s birth cert.
‘I’ll never forget that first day we went to the births, deaths and marriages office. We got dressed up as if we were going somewhere special. It should have been a special day, one every parent remembers, going to register our first baby.
‘When we arrived, we went in and went through the process, filled in the forms, went up to the counter and we were asked initially again for the date of birth and it was typed into the system.’
But Claire said she was then told they could not register their baby that day.
‘I remember my heart sinking into the pit of my stomach as I fought back tears and held my posture, all I could muster to ask was, “Why”? And after a few questions, we were informed that as we were awaiting an inquest, this was the reason we could not register our son without a death certificate.’
After two years, the Cullens’ second child, Darragh, was born and when they returned to their local births, deaths and marriages office to register him, they again asked about Aaron’s birth cert.
They were told that Aaron’s birth cert was with the coroner due to the ongoing inquest.
Claire said: ‘It was absolutely soul destroying. It felt wrong, unfair and cold and I buried those feelings deep within me and told myself that this is just another thing wrong with our whole system. It felt like our son never existed.’
Following Aaron’s inquest in 2019, Claire returned to the registrar to collect Aaron’s birth and death certs. While the death cert was available, the birth cert wasn’t there. Claire was informed that there may have been an error with information sent from the hospital and that she could call the hospital to send information again.
Later that day, Claire received a call from the registrar stating that they went through the manual documents and discovered that a date had been placed incorrectly or was misread on the documents sent from the hospital and Aaron’s birth
month had been logged incorrectly in their system.
The family were finally able to collect Aaron’s birth cert the day before his fourth birthday. The registrar told them the reason they couldn’t collect the birth cert was actually down to the clerical error and that the information they were given previously was incorrect.
Claire said: ‘The manager was confused as to why I had received the information the two previous times I had sought registration. It was to her surprise even more so when I told her she was in fact the person whom I dealt with on both occasions, she was with whom we registered our second-born.
‘The birth cert means so much to us as parents; it was part of
acknowledging the identity of our child and to have to wait so long to get it just added insult to injury.’
In November, the HSE published a report into the death of baby Aaron. It found staff at Portlaoise failed to ‘effectively communicate on several occasions with each other’, Ms Cullen, her husband and The Coombe hospital.
It also found ‘failure by staff to anticipate the potential severity of baby Aaron’s condition at delivery; failure by staff to complete and document all the required steps in the sustained neonatal resuscitation in this case within a desirable timeframe, including failure to assign a scribe to provide a full and accurate recording of the resuscitation efforts provided.’
The investigation team found that the care provided fell ‘well below an acceptable level. These incidental findings, if not addressed, have the potential to cause serious harm to patients’.
The report also includes an apology from an unnamed manager which states: ‘I accept the investigator’s findings and we apologise sincerely for this and for your overall experience in our services.’
Claire told the MoS that there were key aspects to Aaron’s death that were not mentioned in the report, which is why the family are now pursuing further measures.
She said: ‘We fought long and hard for this review… we’ve sat silently waiting for them to give us the answers that we felt were rightfully ours and, in the end, the report itself just didn’t cover all of the investigation procedures that should have been done.’
In response to queries, the HSE said: ‘The Midland Regional Hospital has been engaging with Ms Cullen and are available to provide any assistance to resolve the concerns that are now being raised in consultation with the County Registrar for Births, Marriages and Death.
‘The hospital has apologised and acknowledges the distress the Cullens and their family have experienced.’
‘The birth cert means so much to us as parents’