The minister for Health, Mr Martin, will hold a meeting in Leinster House tomorrow with the father of the woman who was sent from Monaghan General Hospital to Cavan in an advanced stage of labour and lost her premature baby on the way.
He will not, however, discuss the North Eastern Health Board's report on what happened with Mr Jimmy Livingstone. The Minister received the report at lunchtime yesterday and has forwarded it to the independent review team for "validation and evaluation", a spokeswoman said last night.
The team, established by the Minister to investigate whether there were deficiencies in the protocols for dealing with emergencies at Monaghan Hospital, is chaired by Ms Maureen Lynott, head of the Treatment Purchase Fund, and also includes Mr Sean Daly, the master of the Coombe, and Ms Bridget Boyd, a clinical midwife manager (neonatal) in the Coombe.
Ms Lynott said last night her team would be producing a full report by the end of the week, but she would not comment on the NEHB report. The spokeswoman for the Department said it would be inappropriate for the Minister to discuss the contents of the NEHB report with Mr Livingstone as it was still being evaluated.
She said there was no set agenda for tomorrow's meeting. "The only agenda is that the Minister addresses the family's concerns," she said.
Mr Livingstone says the family wants answers as to why Ms Denise Livingstone (32) was sent from Monaghan Hospital on a 25-mile ambulance journey on low-quality roads in the middle of the night last Wednesday despite being on the verge of delivering her premature baby. En route Ms Livingstone gave birth to a baby girl, Bronagh, who, despite breathing and crying for most of the journey to Cavan, died shortly after her arrival.
The issue will be raised at today's meeting of the NEHB this afternoon in Kells. Mr Livingstone has asked to attend as an observer.
Meanwhile, in his first public defence of the health board's strategy for services in the north-east, the board's CEO, Mr Paul Robinson, said the board was awaiting a report from Comhairle na nOspideal on the future of obstetrics, gynaecology and paediatrics across the region.
Writing in today's Irish Times, he says that at a meeting on February 5th this year the board requested approval for the appointment of consultant obstetricians and paediatricians "to allow services to be maintained" at Monaghan and Dundalk.
He says financial approval was received from the Department of Health and he submitted proposals to Comhairle, which established a sub-committee on services in the region. "The report of this sub-committee is awaited," he writes.
However, a spokeswoman for the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said that, given the fact that there were fewer than 1,000 births a year at Monaghan it was wrong to suggest maternity services could be restored there with full consultant cover.
A spokeswoman for the board said it was examining the feasibility of establishing a midwife-led maternity service which would cater for women in their second or subsequent pregnancy.
