THE HUSBAND AND family of Savita Halappanavar have been left ‘very upset’ by yesterday’s leak of the draft HSE report into her death.
Speaking to RTÉ Drivetime, the lawyer for Praveen Halappanavar said that both he and his client had been assured on two separate occasions by the Minister for Health James Reilly that the report would be sent to them before it was made public.
Gerard O’Donnell said that he was disappointed that the report was now in the public domain without Savita’s family having gotten to read it.
Despite the ‘hearsay’ and ‘conjecture’ that surrounded the leak, O’Donnell said that it appeared to confirm what Praveen had said from the outset as to how his wife had been treated.
The draft report is believed to have said that staff should have considered offering Savita an abortion in the days before her death as her unborn child had no chance of survival.
The draft is also reported to have said that a blood infection went undiagnosed in the days before her death at Galway University Hospital.
When asked about the level of cooperation that Praveen was giving to the enquiries into the death of his wife, O’Donnell said that he was continuing to give “total cooperation” to the coroner’s inquest “to establish the truth as to what happened”.
While this is set to reconvene on 8 April, O’Donnell said that the release of documentation to allow this to happen was not happening as “expeditiously as he would like”.
The lawyer also said that the HSE had last week asked whether Praveen would consider meeting with the chairman, but that he had wanted to see the report first. It was his hope to correct any inaccuracies first, at which point a face-to-face meeting may take place.
The final version of the HSE report is expected to be completed by next week.
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