Dolores Logan lost daughter to foster care long before she lost her to leukaemia. Joe Humphreys reports
Two years after the death of her only child, Dolores Logan is still scarred by the loss - all the more so because of what went before. Emily Jane died of leukaemia aged just five years. But for her mother watching her daughter slowly fade away was only part of the trauma.
Dolores (34), from Lusk, north Co Dublin, had until then been engaged in a tireless struggle with her local health board over the custody of the child. The Dublin woman had surrendered Emily Jane voluntarily to foster care after falling ill with depression after her birth. When she recovered she found herself unable to claim the child back from her foster family.
The separation between mother and child that Dolores felt had been unnecessarily prolonged by the health board still rankles today. She has decided to tell her story because she feels "there might be other people out there who have been put through the same thing. I have always wondered, 'Did they do this to other people, or was I the only one?'"
August 18th 1996. It should have been a happy occasion. But Emily Jane's birth was a difficult one, and the 13½-hour labour was only the start of Dolores's woes.
"I was doing door-to-door sales up to three weeks before I gave birth. I was very laid back. Maybe it was the shock of it that sent me over. I got a shock when the reality of the baby hit me. I just hit the ground."
She was diagnosed with a severe form of postnatal depression, of which she can remember little but a constant, "horrible" sadness. "I was crying all day. I couldn't get dressed. I couldn't make a bottle for Emily Jane. It was dreadful."
Dolores admitted herself into hospital for treatment, leaving her daughter initially with her mother, Mary. But when Mary herself fell ill, Dolores turned instead to a family friend. "She was meant to stay with them for a fortnight but it turned into five years."
While staying with Dolores's friend, Emily Jane had been placed in the voluntary care of the health board. When the child was 18 months a reunion was attempted with her mother but it only lasted 13 days. "I wasn't fully recovered for about three years," says Dolores. "But the health board didn't help matters either. They gave me no assistance when I had Emily Jane back, and I wasn't able to cope."
In January 1999, the Dublin District Court granted a two-year court order under the Child Care Act 1991, placing Emily Jane in the care of her foster family. The child was subsequently diagnosed with leukaemia, creating greater pressure on the health board not to move her again.
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that the Northern Area Health Board, or Eastern Health Board as it was then, placed a priority on creating a stable living environment for the child. While Dolores says she accepts Emily Jane's welfare should have been the priority, she feels the health board could have done more to bring about a reunification.
In late 1999 a psychiatric assessment recommended that Dolores be considered for increased access to Emily Jane. Dolores understood this to be a clear assessment, paving the way for full custody of her daughter.
"It went from voluntary foster care to involuntary. They were thinking, 'Will this woman ever be right?', and 'If it fails again, will we have to come back into the picture?' I think they felt it would be best to leave well enough alone. Yes, they were good to Emily Jane. They were there for her interests. But, in their view, the biological family didn't come into it.
"Looking back, I think it all came down to the stigma over mental health. They would have had more compassion if I was a drug addict, or a prostitute; they'd have made a greater effort to reunite me with my child."
Dolores's relationship with the health board wasn't helped when she went public with her case, gaining the backing of several local politicians. Contact between the parties was broken off for a time with official records showing the health board's dismay at her conducting her business "through the media".
There was also tension between Dolores and her daughter's foster family that continued right up to the child's death. There were disputes over access in Emily Jane's final hours, as well as the question of where the child should be buried.
In the preceding years, Dolores had built up a relationship with her daughter, although she admits "the bonding didn't happen for a long time. One day, however, we were at the beach and she said to me 'Mammy, I don't see a lot of you. I would like to see more of you.' That was really special.
"We became great buddies after a while. I used to tell her 'I love you' all the time, and she'd said, 'You don't have to tell me you love me. I know you love me.' But I'd say, 'No, I do have tell you'," she laughs.
She praises Emily Jane's foster family for the care they gave her, adding: "I am not bitter about it. I'm more sorry. I'm still wondering at what stage do you cease to have a right over your child? After fighting the health board for all these years I still don't know."
Now married, and working in a local nursing home, Dolores is planning a fresh start - the couple are due to move into their first home shortly. But, says Dolores, she has ruled out the possibility of having another child in the future as she is "too afraid".
"I wouldn't put myself in that position again. They are the scars. They do not heal completely."