During the week, I listened to mother Shauna Keyes bravely describe
the sheer horror that she and her family endured at the hands of the HSE. Shauna was 18 years old and in labour with
her first baby when she was given a drug called Syntocinon, a synthetic form of
the hormone Oxytocin, a drug used routinely in Irish maternity hospitals, to
speed up delivery.
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| Pic with thanks to the Irish Independent |
Baby Joshua did not tolerate the drug well and he died, an
hour after being delivered by emergency caesarean section at the Midland
Regional Hospital, Portlaoise. Shauna and her partner were given several different reasons
for the death of their baby. They were
told that his organs were too heavy, that he showed signs of Down Syndrome and
would never have survived, that a heavy blow during pregnancy could have caused
his death. An eventual inquest into baby
Joshua’s death ruled that he had in-fact died as a result of intrapartal
anoxia, that is oxygen deprivation at birth.
Shauna described having a few minutes with her son before he
was taken from her. She described how he
was dressed in hospital clothing, not the new baby clothes that she had so
lovingly packed into her hospital case. She described the utter indignity of how
her son was left on a wheelchair, outside her room in an ill-fitting white box,
with a lid, covered over by a sheet. She
was told not to hold him because he was “on ice”. She talked about her battle for answers in
the months and years following her son’s death.
Her voice didn’t falter as she talked about encountering other families
on the maternity ward and not wanting her grief to intrude on their
happiness.
Lastly, Shauna talked about her “great hopes” for the
future of maternity care. She was
referring to Ireland’s first National Maternity Strategy – Creating A Better
Future Together, which was published last week.
The Strategy hopes to restore confidence in maternity services and to
make them as safe as possible, working in partnership with expectant mothers.
A
new National Women and Infants’ Health Programme will offer multi-disciplinary
care. A new community midwifery service
will be developed. Expectant mothers
will be offered choices around their care, ranging from home birth to
specialised assistance. Services will be
appropriately resourced, underpinned by strong, effective leadership,
management and governance arrangements, and delivered by skilled, competent
staff.
The death of baby Joshua, contributed to the development of
this Strategy. The deaths of four other
babies at Portlaoise hospital in recent years, contributed to the development
of this Strategy. Their precious tiny
lives and the lives of women like Savita Halappanavar, Sally Rowlette, Bimbo
Onanuga, and Dhara Kivlehan, who all died as a direct result of their
experiences within our maternity services, were not forgotten.
Their lives mattered and their deaths mattered. They have helped to shape the future of our maternity
services and I for one, will be forever indebted to their families, for their
bravery, determination and love.
www.thebabyroom.ie
www.thebabyroom.ie
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