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Updated 5.01pm
SLIGO REGIONAL HOSPITAL has apologised to the husband and family of Sally Rowlette, the mother-of-four who died after giving birth at the hospital.
In a statement this evening, the hospital said it wished to apologise “for the events related to [Sally]‘s care that contributed to her tragic death and to take this opportunity to again offer our condolences”.
A jury at the inquest into Sally Rowlette’s death yesterday returned a unanimous verdict of medical misadventure.
The 36-year-old had suffered a stroke after she gave birth in Sligo General Hospital in February last year. It was found that the hospital did not properly manage her HELLP Syndrome, which is a severe form of pre-eclampsia. She suffered a massive brain haemorrhage and died the day after she gave birth to her daughter.
In its statement, Sligo Regional Hospital said a number of improvements have taken place at the hospital in recent years specifically relating to maternity and ICU services.
Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast today, family solicitor Roger Murray said “at its heart, this is a tragedy, and an avoidable tragedy at that”. He spoke of the woman’s husband Sean and his devastation following her sudden death, as they had been together since they were in secondary school.
“It’s been enormously difficult for him”, Murray said. However he said the verdict in the inquest will allow Sean to give answers to their four children when they are older and ask what happened to their mother. He also said the “robust recommendations” made by the jury are a huge comfort to the family.
RTÉ reports that the inquest heard there was no consultant in the Intensive Care Unit for more than four hours aside from a visit by an obstetrician at 4.30am. Dr Peter Boylan, consultant obstetrician at the National Maternity Hospital told Morning Ireland that if there had been a consultant monitoring Sally Rowlette, “things might have been different”.
One of the consultants who was involved with the woman’s care abruptly left the hospital two weeks after her death in the middle of a period of leave and attempts to trace him since have been fruitless.
Boylan said this case represented a “structural, fundamental problem” in Irish health services, where temporary consultants are overused. He said we need to figure out why so many doctors are going to Australia and Canada and the service needs to put in place a system that makes jobs more attractive to specialist consultants.
“Like air accidents it’s always a series of minor deficiencies which conspire together to result in a catastrophe and the death of a mother,” he said.
Additional reporting by Christine Bohan
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There is something terribly amiss in our maternity units.
My mother died in 1948 aged 27 of preclampsia. To think we are still loosing our young women in childbirth in 2014 through what appears to be carelessness is just beyond belief!
All of the systems are sound, it’s the people meant to be implementing them that let people down.
The systems or “policies” may be sound, but a few words on an A4 sheet of paper is not going to physically stop these “mistakes” happening.
We need our hospital staff to be able to work without needless pressure and proper working hours.
A lorry driver cannot work more than 4.5hrs on the trot without a break and cannot surpass 48hrs per week, but yet a doctor can be forced to work 24hrs and more on the trot and up over 100hrs per week. Its fvcking madness.
24 hours??? The EWTD does not apply to consultants who can be CONTINUOUSLY on call for up to 72 hrs
Excellent point! You would think legislation around working time directives would stop this!
Poor man looks broken. Terribly sad.
Sympathies to you and your children. So sad.
Ireland needs to seriously look at how we deal with births in this country, we appear to have a high mortality rate in births
Cutbacks to staffing levels on the front line. Too much red-tape in the already over-swelled middle management systems and outsourcing. Also hiring of staff where the levels of english are quite poor all makes a recipe for disaster.
It’s high time that we started running hospitals whereby no-one can to be forced to work over 40hrs a week and look at a rigid shift system where 7-3 and 3-11 are the main hours of operation and the overnight can retain a basic staffing levels with exception to A&E. These shifts would be for everyone, including the hospital management.
Start at the front-line and work up. Swell the numbers on the floors and cut the fat behind desks.
@TheLoneHurler
There is no evidence that cutbacks have contributed to deaths. The blame for medical misadventures rests with front-line personnel, not administrators.
“A report earlier this year by chief medical officer, Tony Holohan, into the deaths of four babies at the hospital, between 2006 and 2012, found the maternity unit was unsafe.
He also found that babies and their families were treated in a poor, and at times, appalling manner, with limited respect, kindness, courtesy and consideration.”
Here’s another horrific case.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/botched-op-medics-cleared-by-inquiry-26677976.html
I’d say there’s a reasonable chance that temporary staff had something to do with it.
An experienced midwife would have noticed the high blood pressure, and made sure the doctors dealt with it.
A permanent doctor wouldn’t find it as easy to run away when then had been incompetent.
A properly staffed Intensive care unit would have permanent consultants – who would provide 24 hour cover, not just provide on call cover in between working as an anaesthetist.
Maybe if there was more consultants, they might have time to explain things properly to patients and families. Maybe they might have time to take proper care of their patients.
@David
Doctors, nurses and midwives are either competent or they’re incompetent. The training that they have received is enough for them to be able to detect high blood pressure and other ailments.
A truck driver legally can’t work more than 56hrs a week as he could endanger road users
Yet doctors and nurses, some of which perform surgery on on people, are worked to the bone week in week out!?
Priorities!
I find it somewhat disturbing that a hospital consultant can disappear without a trace. They had that little information about him they can’t even make contact. Even if he returned to another jurisdiction you would think they could make contact.
Some state of affairs where a consultant could think if I screw it up I’ll just high tail it out of here.
@Conor
The Medical Council doesn’t have the power to bring criminal proceedings. Therefore, the consultant cannot be extradited. He fled to Saudi Arabia shortly after Sally died. Coward!
I was thinking at least making contact, not as far as extradition. As a general point it is worrying that there are potentially no consequences for many consultants who screw up.
Once systemic failure is mentioned ( Dr Boylan) nobody will be held to account, demoted or sacked. Discipline is for the little people not Hospital Consultants. Anyone sanctioned in the Hallapanavar case.
They are now looking for a second consultant who has gone missing as well ……
@Michael Reilly
The Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Board are reviewing the actions of those involved in her care.
Hear hear TheLoneHurler..
You couldn’t even begin to imagine this poor mans grief
At the risk of sounding callous, I am heartily tired of reading and hearing apologies for “mistakes” that shouldn’t have happened. “Sorry” doesn’t resurrect anybody.
Why does it take so much heartache and strife for a citizen to go through in order for the State to admit it’s mistakes and liabilities ?
This is exactly the kind of comment that could prejudice a negligence case.
Is the article not about the trial finishing?
Foxtrot, it’s an inquest, not a trial.
He may, or may not, take a case against HSE in the future.
The title of the article and substantive content has been altered since my original comment. When I originally posted, the story did not contain the fact that the hospital had apologised.
have your say