Reilly seeks report on Portlaoise baby deaths

Thursday 30 January 2014 14.24

The Minister for Health has said he has asked the secretary general of the Department of Health to ask the chief medical officer to issue him with a report on the deaths of four babies at Midland Regional Hospital, Portlaoise.

The deaths at the hospital's maternity unit are the subject of an RTÉ Investigations Unit report due to be aired in a special Prime Time programme tonight.

James Reilly said that following the medical officer's report he will take whatever actions have to be taken to make sure there is not a repeat of the situation.

Mr Reilly said we need transparency and patient safety is at the core of his objectives.

One of the main priorities of the National Service Plan is to ensure that proper patient service is delivered across the board in the Health Service Executive, the minister added.

RTÉ investigated the deaths of a number of babies over a six-year period at the hospital.

Its investigation unit said the babies were alive at the onset of labour but died either during labour or within seven days of birth.

In the cases examined by RTÉ, there were no congenital abnormalities, meaning the babies did not have a physical condition where their ability to survive was diminished resulting in death. Therefore other factors led to their deaths.

A report into the death of one baby in 2008 found there were a number of failings in the care provided by the hospital to both the mother and baby.

These included a failure to recognise when the baby was in distress during labour and the inappropriate use of a drug used to increase the rate of contractions.

A number of recommendations were made in the report to improve patient safety.

However the investigations unit has learned that other babies subsequently died in very similar circumstances and that the review of these cases also found failings in the care provided.

The care failures in these cases showed strong similarities to the failures in the earlier case.

The programme finds the hospital and HSE had failed to implement the previous recommendations, which may have saved these babies lives.

The investigations unit also discovered that neither the hospital nor the HSE informed the bereaved families that an investigation had taken place in their case or that a report had been produced until years later.

One mother only learned of the investigation and report some five years after her baby died.

Fatal Failures - Prime Time, tonight at 9.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ News Now

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