The father of the woman whose baby died after she was refused admission to Monaghan General Hospital walked out of a meeting of the North Eastern Health Board in disgust yesterday after members were told the incident, which had tragic consequences, could not be discussed.
The board's chairman, Mr Declan Breathnach, said he had received legal advice that it would be inappropriate and improper to comment on the case at this stage.
Ms Denise Livingstone (32), was sent in an ambulance without a doctor or nurse on a 25-mile journey in the middle of the night to Cavan General Hospital, even though she was already in labour. On the way she gave birth to a premature baby girl who died shortly after arrival in Cavan hospital.
Mr Breathnach said the advice of lawyers was it should not be discussed until a review of the circumstances surrounding the baby's death was complete.
To discuss the case would be to prejudice the review ordered by the Minister for Health, he claimed.
Mr Jimmy Livingstone's walkout followed angry scenes over the decision of the chairman not to suspend standing orders to allow discussion of the case.
As he left the meeting, Mr Livingstone from Emyvale, who today meets the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, to discuss the case, accused the board members of being spineless. "I've never seen such a shower of spineless individuals in my life. I always understood a chairman was independent but your chairman has not made one decision without a whisper from the chief executive officer. You are a shower of spineless, good for nothings, the whole lot of you," he told them. His walkout followed the decision of three of the board members to leave the meeting in protest. These included TDs Mr Caoimhghín O Caoláin, Mr Paudge Connolly and the Mayor of Monaghan, Mr Hugh McElvaney.
Mr O Caoláin had put down a motion calling for standing orders to be suspended to discuss the tragedy "against the backdrop of the very real fear that grips families throughout Co Monaghan and in other areas of the north east".
He also wanted the NEHB to re-examine the current maternity services and support facilities within the region to address "current deficiencies and the wider public concern".
Ms Livingstone was not admitted to Monaghan Hospital because maternity services at the hospital were suspended last year.
Mr O Caoláin said the issue was being discussed in every forum imaginable in the land and it was patently unacceptable and totally wrong that it could not be discussed by the health board responsible for Monaghan Hospital.
He said baby Bronagh Livingstone was the second baby lost since maternity services in the region were reorganised.
Last summer a Co Louth woman, also in labour, was turned away from Dundalk Regional Hospital and told to travel by car to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda to have her baby.
She gave birth in Drogheda and the baby was stillborn. Following this incident a health board review was carried out but it was not published.
However, the protocols in place at Monaghan General Hospital when Ms Livingstone was turned away were drawn up after the previous incident. Mr Connolly said the legal advice was a smokescreen.
He claimed if the matter was not discussed and changes made immediately the health board could be facing another tragedy.
Mr McElvaney said he had warned the health board CEO, Mr Paul Robinson, and his deputy they would be left with blood on their hands if maternity services were suspended at Monaghan Hospital.
They now had the blood of baby Bronagh on their hands, he said.
"You are a disgrace and a shame," he told them before leaving the meeting.
Mr Robinson said the review carried out by the health board in the Livingstone case had been sent to the Minister and it was now his property.
It was not health board property and he could not circulate it to members or officials, he said.
Commenting on the meeting afterwards, Mr Livingstone said the members were hiding behind legal advice. He described the meeting as a farce and a circus.
He also complained that nobody had asked the Livingstone family for their input into the independent investigation.
"We have not been consulted. Nobody has made contact with us since my daughter left Cavan Hospital on Thursday morning with her dead baby," he said.