Father of baby who died in Portlaoise hospital demands accountability

The father of a baby who died in Portlaoise hospital says HSE management must take responsibility for the deaths instead of seeking to prevent the publication of a Hiqa report.

"They need to take responsibility for their actions and inactions on this, and be accountable for them, allow the systems to be improved and allow the hospitals to move on with a much safer system," said Mark Molloy, whose son died just minutes after birth at the Midlands Regional Hospital in 2012.

It was one of four similar cases which occurred at the same maternity ward between 2006 and 2012. However, despite the release of a report and recommendations last year, Mr Molloy says families in similar situations are still struggling to find help and support.

30 to 40 families

“We’ve talked to between 30 and 40 other families who contacted us since the RTÉ

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programme last year to try and get help in getting their files and getting inquests – anything that can help them, but they’re just being denied this by the HSE.

“My partner Róisín was on the phone to a girl for two hours yesterday telling her to secure her files and all that sort of stuff. It’s still going on and we need it to end,” he adds.

A statement released by the HSE yesterday voiced severe reservations over the Hiqa report and made reference to alleged inaccuracies and a lack of context to substantiate certain findings.

Following a recent meeting with Minister for Health Leo Varadkar, Mr Molloy says he is fully confident that the report will eventually be published, but believes the dispute between the two State bodies presents an unedifying spectacle which is causing some to lose faith in the system.

“Delaying the inevitable”

“We believe that they’re only delaying the inevitable and that once the report is published, it will reflect even worse on people if they try to stand in the way of it.

“ When you have senior people trying to block a report into what went wrong, then you can have no faith in the system.

“We have had nothing to convince us that things have changed over the last three years,” he adds. “I hope it has, and we really hope that people can say to us ‘things are much safer now’, but there’s really no evidence of it.”