HSE fail Savita Halappanavar - in Life & in Death

Today, the HSE published the long awaited report into the death of Savita Halappanavar who died of Sepsis following a miscarriage after being denied a termination in October of 2012.

You may read the full report here:
http://www.hse.ie/eng/services/news/nimtreport50278.pdf

While the nation digests the report findings, there are two issues which raise immediate red flags indicating that despite all the effort which has gone into the theatrical display of expert opinions, grave expressions, and urgent comments, the HSE hasn't learned from this process one iota.

1) Recommendations following the inquest of Savita Halapanavar included the need for 'proper and effective communication'. You might recall that the same recommendations have also been put forward following the death of Tania McCabe, Bimbo Onanuga, the Miscarriage Misdiagnosis Scandal.... (are we making our point?). Despite this, Praveen Halappanavar is reported today as being 'unaware' that the HSE report was to be published today. #IRONY?

How can we trust a health body to enforce recommendations when they can't get something so basic as effective communication with Praveen right?
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/savita-s-husband-not-made-aware-report-is-being-published-1.1427122

2.) The HSE report into the death of Savita Halappanavar has the inclusion and full disclosure of all pre-admission history with her GP on confirmation of pregnancy and details from Savita's booking appointment to UCHG prior to the onset of her miscarriage. The amount of intimate personal history detail included in this report is mindboggling.

We just want to make sure we get this straight, the HSE protects their staff by not naming HCPs involved in the case within the report, but they can include the dead woman's weight, her HIV status, previous medical history,  her need for GTT, blood group, medications during pregnancy, if her pregnancy was planned or not, her height, if she planned to breastfeed, her scans, etc?

We are all for transparency but something here just doesn't feel right.

It would appear violations in repsect, dignity, and patient rights linger in life and in death.

Inquest for Bimbo Onanuga resumes July 5th 2013

 Information about the Inquest for Bimbo Onanuga, 18^th April 2013; 5^th July. 2013

Bimbo Onanuga was a Nigerian woman from Lagos State who died in the Rotunda Hospital on March 4^th, 2010.

Bimbo was almost thirty weeks pregnant when she was admitted to the Rotunda Hospital with an intrauterine foetal death at the beginning of March, 2010. She was admitted to the Rotunda late on the 3^rd March for treatment to deal with the foetal death. Bimbo died the following day. 

At the time of her death, Bimbo left behind her daughter, Nellie, who had been born in Limerick Regional Hospital in 2003. Nellie was quadriplegic and Bimbo was her principal carer. Ten months after her mother’s death, Nellie herself died from complications relating to her complex condition.  

Bimbo’s partner, Abiola Adesina, who was with Bimbo that day in the Rotunda, and Bimbo’s family have pressed for an inquest about Bimbo’s death to discover and understand the unfolding train of events leading up to this tragedy. There has also been continuing concern and unease in the Nigerian emigrant community in Dublin about the circumstances of Bimbo’s death. 

Maternal deaths, while a rarity, nonetheless have been shown statistically to affect non-national emigrant women almost twice as frequently as women born in either the UK or Ireland (CMACE, 2011; MDE, 2012). 

The Dublin City Coroner has granted the family’s request for an inquest. The first session was held  on the 18^th April. The second session will resume on the 5^th July, 2013 at 11 am. sharp.

It would be wonderful if there were visible support for Bimbo and her family in the court.

The Coroner’s Court is in Store Street behind Busaras:

http://www.coronerdublincity.ie/contact.htm

 

 

References

CMACE (2011) Saving Mothers’ Lives: Reviewing maternal deaths to make motherhood safer: 2006-2008 March 2011 The Eighth Report of the Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths in the United Kingdom BCOG 118 Supplement 1 March 2011.  

Maternal Death Enquiry Ireland (2012) Confidential Maternal Death Enquiry in Ireland, Report for Triennium 2009-2011, Cork: MDE.

 

COMING SOON: "42weeks" Campaign: Be a part of it! Send in YOUR positive birth stories and beautiful images

Are you getting excited?!?!

Only 16 more days until the launch of our 42 weeks campaign!!!

We need your help! AIMS Ireland are looking for positive birth stories  and your precious birth images for this campaign. Our hope is to grow a library of wonderful stories to have as a reference for women giving birth in Ireland; rather than American or UK stories.

Help us celebrate the positive aspects of births in Ireland  - please send in your birth stories and beautiful birth images!!

A positive birth story is a personal reflection of a woman's experience during birth. We seek stories from women who birthed in Ireland and felt they had a positive experience. "Positive Birth" comes in all shapes and sizes - the 'how' and the 'where' will be different for every woman and we hope to have a wide variety of stories to share.

Beautiful birth images - we are looking for photographs and videos of women birthing in Ireland. Bump shots, labour, birth, caesarean, meeting your baby, dad's first cuddle, breastfeeding, new baby, first bath - you name it!

Please send stories and images to: 42weeks@gmail.com 
All stories and images are anonymous unless specificed

Don't forget to follow us on Twitter: @42_weeks
A Facebook page for the "42weeks" campaign is Coming Soon!

BREAKING NEWS: Mini Marathon for Social Justice

 

 

BREAKING NEWS:

 

One of our amazing supporters, Sylda Langford, will be running the Flora Mini Marathon to raise money for AIMS Ireland on the 3rd of June! AIMS Ireland are in desperate need of funding - not only for the everyday running of AIMS Ireland (website, insurance) but in order to support women and improve services.

AIMS Ireland has had a request for financial support for legal justice regarding a maternal death inquiry. We need to raise €800. Be a part of social justice - all money raised by Sylda will go towards this maternal death inquiry.

 

To sponsor Sylda, please donate through the 'donate' button on the AIMS Ireland website and note that it is for the mini marathon.

** OUR PROMISE: AIMS Ireland is run solely by volunteers and funded through donations and fundraising. Volunteers cover their own costs (travel to meetings, parking, childminding, phone costs). All money donated to AIMS Ireland goes directly back to women and support

Sponsor Sylda at AIMS Ireland: http://www.aimsireland.com/homepage/?topic=home

"Casting the Public Hospitals Adrift" Guest Blog by Marie O'Connor

Casting the Public Hospitals Adrift

Guest Blog Post by Marie O'Connor

First you cast the public hospitals adrift, then you turn them into business entities. That's the idea, anyway, behind the formation of the new hospital trusts. The Hanly Report has been resuscitated, this time in the guise of the hospital trusts report, which lays the foundation for the privatisation of our public hospital services. Under Universal Health Insurance (UHI), "the distinction between public and private health care will diminish" (page 62). Public hospitals will no longer be public: they will be "independent". Even the ambulance services are to become a trust, denationalised, like the maternity services, to enable them to be "configured to complement the hospital groups". For configuration, read reconfiguration.

The newly published report is short on detail: each hospital group, soon to become a trust - there are only six of them - will provide "a maternity service". That leaves a wide margin for manoeuvre. Maternity units in Cavan and Drogheda could close. The hospital trusts report commits only to maintaining maternity units in Tralee, Letterkenny and Wexford, so the future of the rest, including those in Portlaoise, Mullingar, Kilkenny, Clonmel, Ballinasloe, Castlebar and even Sligo, will depend on the new boards being created. These interim boards will decide on the cuts and closures within each hospital group, so the Government will no longer have to take the flak. Pure genius.

Nowhere does the report acknowledge that people have a right to accessible hospital services. The struggle of communities to maintain local hospitals is described on page 50 under the heading "Emotion", not equity. Smaller hospitals, we are assured, will provide more services, not less, but the history of Monaghan General Hospital shows otherwise. Ireland has one of the lowest allocations of acute hospitals per head of population in the European Union, and we are now preparing to slash and burn even further: children under five will not be seen in a local injuries unit.

All staff, clinical and non clinical, will be appointed to these hospital groups. With a further 4,000 jobs to go in the HSE, the new structures will pave the way for redeployment - and redundancies, presumably. There is a strong emphasis on "international" inputs. Hospital trust CEOs will be appointed through "open international competition" and each trust will be expected to tag onto a hospital "of international repute" and to "health service systems" overseas. My guess is these systems will be located in the US.

The new hospital landscape is called "managed competition". Hospitals will be "like private enterprises", cutting corners in the name of profit, presumably, to be reinvested in the enterprise. Creating an internal market, splitting the purchaser (still the State, mostly) from the provider (so-called not for profit hospitals), as Thatcher did in England in the 1980s, will lead to a massive increase in bureaucracy, which is the last thing our health service needs. Trusts can buy services as well as provide them, and private hospitals are hoping for a share of the cake.

UHI is modeled on the Dutch system, which has strong parallels with US-style managed care, where tens of millions are uninsured. Holland’s two-tier health system has been abolished––and replaced by a three-tier health system, where half a million people are either uninsured or in arrears. Under UHI, everyone will be legally required to take out private health insurance, but the cost of this has more than doubled in the last seven years. Bringing in the Dutch system, a gravy train for doctors, won't help. Premiums in Holland rose by over 40 per cent in the first five years of the new system. Household health insurance costs on average €4,and 500- €5,500 annually: the basic package costs over €1,200 per person, with employers deducting a further 7 per cent (up to a ceiling of €2,200) at source and the State dipping into social welfare payments. On top of all of this insurance-related extortion, people have to pay out of pocket for certain items and the standard basket of healthcare is so inadequate that anyone who can afford it takes out top up insurance. The pressure to drive down costs has also driven down quality, as it often does in for profit systems.

The government will now pay for services over which it has little or no control, and this loss of autonomy will extend to many hospitals. The biggest hospitals will rule: smaller hospitals may be managed directly by bigger ones. Clinical staff will also lose out to the managerial class. The new corporatised system is one where managers have "complete control of over the production of services" and "liquidation is the ultimate consequence of not remaining in budget" (page 47).

Cost control is widely acknowledged to be one of the main weaknesses of the Dutch system. That system, just seven years old, is untried and untested. More than 50 per cent of hospitals in the Netherlands were facing bankruptcy in 2011, five years after the introduction of universal health insurance.

So why are we doing this?

"No Means No" whether its in a Double-bed or a Hospital Bed

"No Means No" whether its in a Double-bed or a Hospital Bed

"No Means No".  Whether its in a Double-bed or a Hospital Bed.
It seems ridiculous that it even needs to be said. But apparently, following another report today, it does.

To Health Care Professionals: Assualt for Dummies 101

You must obtain consent from a woman in order to perform a procedure.
If a woman says 'no' or 'stop' during a procedure, YOU MUST STOP.
If a woman physically tries to distance herself from you during a procedure, YOU MUST STOP.
If a woman tries to push you away, YOU MUST STOP.
If you need to physically restrain or hold down a woman to do a procedure (force a woman's legs apart), IT IS ASSAULT.

To Birthing Partners and Dads: If your partner was being assualted on the street, would you do nothing?

The same rules apply in childbirth. During birth, if a woman does not consent to a procedure, or consents but then asks for the health care professional to stop and they don't, it is assualt.

What can you do?

Take responsibility. Reinforce and support your partner's expressions of consent. Be on her side.
Repeat your partner's wishes "She said no" or "She said stop"
State the obvious, "She said no, this is assault"
Request a change: "She said no. We want a different midwife/doctor."
Supervisor: "She said no. I want to see your supervisor."
Report  " She asked you to stop/said no. I have your name. I am reporting you to the ABA (midwife)"
             " She asked you to stop/said no. I have your name. I am reporting you to the Medical     Council (doctor)"

If you don't have their name, get it.



An Bord Altranais - reporting misconduct: http://www.nursingboard.ie/en/reporting_misconduct.aspx

Medical Council - reporting misconduct: http://www.medicalcouncil.ie/Public-Information/Making-a-Complaint-/

Have you been forced to travel to give birth?

Have you been forced to travel? 

 AIMSI have spoke to several women who have travelled to the UK to get the birth they wanted as they do not meet State criteria here. AIMSI are documenting these stories and others. Have you been forced to travel? We'd like to hear from you!

Please contact us at support@aimsireland.com or chair@aimsireland.com