Parties criticise HSE after report on death of mother

OPPOSITION PARTIES yesterday accused the Health Service Executive (HSE) of failing to learn from its own mistakes following the publication of the findings of a report into the death of a 34-year-old woman after she gave birth to twins at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, last year. Eithne Donnellan , Health Correspondent, reports.

The inquiry into the death of Tania McCabe found "a system failure" had led to her death. It noted that gaps in communication resulted in doctors not diagnosing that her waters had broken when she presented at the hospital a few days before giving birth.

As a result, she was discharged home with tablets for a urinary tract infection. When she returned to the hospital more than 30 hours later to give birth, the care provided by staff to the young woman was "compromised by their workload and the environment in which they were working".

At that stage sepsis had set in, which was the main cause of her death. One of her twins also died.

Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly said the report, extracts of which were published in The Irish Times yesterday, indicated patients were being put at risk by an under-resourced, overcrowded and overworked hospital service. "My heart goes out to the family of Tania McCabe as the report today confirms that she was failed by the health service. This was both a clinical and a systemic failure," he said.

The fact that the report said her care was compromised by the staff's workload and their working environment was of serious concern, he added. "Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital experienced a 90 per cent increase in births since 1999 as other local maternity services were closed, but this has not been matched by resources."

Labour health spokeswoman Jan O'Sullivan said there had been no shortage of reports on under-staffing at the Drogheda hospital but they had unfortunately gone unheeded. "We need guarantees that this report will not join the myriad of others that have ended up gathering dust on a HSE shelf."

Sheila O'Connor, of Patient Focus, said her group sympathised with the family of Tania McCabe. "The overwhelming view of the women in Patient Focus is to wonder how many more tragedies have to occur before a safe service is in place at this maternity unit for all women and babies," she added.

She urged the HSE to implement the recommendations of the Lourdes hospital inquiry report and this latest report as soon as possible.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times