The Health Service Executive disclosed on Monday evening that individual external reviews were being conducted into the delivery of nine babies at Portiuncula University Hospital (PUH), Co Galway, due to concerns over the provision of maternity services.
This is not the first time concerns have been raised about the performance of the Ballinasloe-based hospital in this area.
In the latest development, the HSE said six babies delivered last year and one born this month had hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE), with six referred for a treatment known as neonatal cooling.
In addition, it said two stillbirths occurred at the hospital in 2023 and the circumstances were also being reviewed externally.
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HIE is essentially the reduction in the supply of blood or oxygen to a baby’s brain before, during or after birth.
Back in early 2015, an inquiry into maternity services at the hospital was established with James Walker, professor of obstetrics at the University of Leeds, appointed to head it.
The move followed unease around the transfer of four newborns to Dublin for neonatal cooling in late 2014, a baby’s death and other cases of “significant concern”.
The findings of the “Walker report”, published in May 2018, identified multiple serious failures. These included staffing issues, a lack of training and poor communication among maternity staff, which contributed to the death of three babies.
The report examined the delivery and neonatal care of 18 babies at Portiuncula. Of the 18 births examined, six involved either still births or the death of the baby shortly after delivery. In three of these cases, there were “key causal factors” which if handled differently would have likely led to a different outcome.
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In a further six cases, the baby suffered some level of injury, including in one case, grade 3 HIE. In three of these cases, Walker said, better hospital care would have led to improved outcomes.
The report also contained an apology to the affected parents from the hospital and the HSE.
Speaking on Tuesday, Walker said his understanding was the families involved at the time had been “quite pleased” that improvements had been made following the report’s publication.
Separately, between 2019 and 2023, a further eight reviews took place into cases of concern. A series of service-improvement plans and other measures were implemented at the maternity unit following these reviews.
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Tony Canavan, regional executive officer for HSE West and North West, emphasised on Tuesday that the hospital was a safe environment to give birth.
He said the HSE was “very open” about all of the cases that had occurred and that individual case reviews have been worked through with families.
“Clinical incidents occur in hospitals all of the time, it’s the nature of the delivery of care,” he told RTÉ Radio 1. “The most important thing is that we are open to identifying incidents when they arise first of all and that we examine and review each one and learn from it.”
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