From here to maternity

Recent Medical Independent column from 11 June 2015 on the urgent need for change in maternity services.

For anyone interested in learning how our health system fails people, there is no greater lesson than listening to testimonies at the Oireachtas Health Committee from parents whose babies died in Portlaoise.

Varadkar and O’Brien’s biggest test: to deliver safe maternity services

My analysis of Portlaoise HIQA report in the Irish Independent on 16 May 2015
Five babies died in Portlaoise Hospital between 2006 and 2013. The maternity unit was unsafe, with insufficient frontline clinical staff, under-resourced to cope with the complexity of care required. Had lessons been learnt from previous HSE inquiries into Portlaoise and Hiqa reviews into Ennis and Mallow hospitals between 2007 and 2010, babies’ lives could have been saved.

HSE and HIQA must ensure it’s safe to give birth in all Irish maternity units

Op ed from the Irish Independent on 31 March 2015 on the ugly spat between HIQA and the HSE 

Taoiseach, make this the best little country in the world for people with disabilities

My take on the abuse in Aras Attracta as detailed by the RTE Investigations Unit in Irish Independent on 11 December 2014.

The HSE reacted promptly and with apparent gravity to the abuse in Aras Attracta, exposed by RTE’s ‘Prime Time’ programme, once it was made aware of it.

Quality care comes at a cost

We do not need experts or reports to tell us that proper healthcare requires adequate staffing and resources. See column from 24 October 2013.