THE HSE IS to conduct a review into baby and maternal deaths during childbirth over a three-year period. 

The review, described as a “confidential inquiry”, will begin later this year and will cover the years 2021 to 2023, with an updated report published annually.

The National Women and Infants Health Programme (NWIHP), which leads the delivery of maternity, gynaecology and neonatal services in Ireland, is currently developing terms of reference for the review.

The HSE said there will be public and patient involvement in the review process, which will need to assess case notes.

To do this, expert assessors will be drawn from obstetrics, midwifery, neonatology, neonatal nursing, perinatal pathology, foetal medicine and other specialties.

No assessor will be assigned a case involving their own hospital.

But a campaign organisation has called for an independent inquiry into perinatal and maternal deaths and birth injuries over a ten-year period to be set up. 

Safer Births Ireland, an advocacy group for women and families who have been affected by baby deaths, said that while the HSE review is “welcomed progress”, they are concerned it will not be sufficient and questioned why it is confidential.

“We believe a three year over a ten-year period is not significant enough to provide the necessary threads and issues continuously presenting throughout patient shared experience and within these cases,” the group said.

“A ten-year inquiry would be more constructive, transparent and lead to a definitive approach towards the implementation of change in quality and patient safety and its review process, within our maternity system.”

Claire Cullen, who co-founded the group, told The Journal that they would be “extremely concerned” about how the HSE inquiry would be carried out.

She said maternity care is a “small-knit community” and it’s possible that an assessor from any of the 19 maternity units across the country could be asked to review a case that they have knowledge of.

“Once an independent inquiry is commissioned, it’s done external to the HSE and staff whom actually either work with each other as colleagues or know each other. We need an external investigator for this,” she said. 

“We want to open up the conversation around this because we know it’s a big ask. That’s the reason why we’re campaigning towards it.

“We’d be happy to meet somewhere in the middle, but they need to engage with us in order to do that, and unfortunately, they’re not engaging with anybody. They’re not engaging with us at all. That’s why we’re trying to make a little bit of noise.”

Cullen said that issues around maternity care in Ireland have been in the public domain for years, dating back to 2014, when a Prime Time investigation looked into the deaths of eight babies in avoidable circumstances at Portlaoise Hospital. 

“The issue here and the concern is that all of the shared experiences, even for women who have lost children in recent years, are the exact same as what was presented then. Our experiences have not changed,” she said.

“Despite the implementation of new policies, new frameworks, the work that the HSE are doing, it still comes down to the experience of the service user and the parents that are involved, and we don’t see a change.”

She said that while Safer Births Ireland would welcome a meeting with the Taoiseach, the Minister for Health or the HSE, the group has held previous meetings with the health service that were “not progressive” and “nothing was gained”. 

“We don’t need to sit with them to inform them of our cases when we know they’re already aware of it. We would rather them sit with us and gain insight and inform us of what we can do collectively to work together.”

There were three maternal deaths in Ireland in the same week in June. 

Stephy Scaria (née Ouseph) died unexpectedly on 21 June after a Caesarean section in Cork University Hospital. On 23 June, Naomi James (née Boyle) died tragically in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. 

Separately, University Hospital Kerry confirmed that a mother in their care had died recently and that the Coroner has been notified.

In May, The Journal spoke to a number of women who shared their experience of birth trauma in Ireland

This prompted more mothers to contact The Journal to share their experiences, some of which included alleged medical negligence, understaffing and a lack of empathy.

They also said that an inquiry is needed to reflect the scale and impact of the crisis.