Minister for Health James Reilly yesterday said he would have to consider the findings of the Savita Halappanavar jury in detail.
“Because the verdict has just been issued and because I must consider it in detail to garner the lessons to be learned from it, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to take questions on it right now,” he said in Cork.
Responding to a question as to whether he felt he should apologise to Praveen Halappanavar for the treatment and deficiencies in the care that his wife Savita received in hospital, Mr Reilly said he would like to examine the report.
“I’d certainly have no issue about apologising to any patient’s relative who felt that their relative had not been treated properly and that through any derogation of duty had suffered such catastrophic consequence as Savita Halappanavar,” Mr Reilly said.
Reading from a statement, Mr Reilly said it was “most important to go back to the central reality here . . . that is that a young woman has died and her baby died with her and that a young man has lost his wife and his daughter.
“What followed this tragedy has been desperately hard on Mr Praveen Halappanavar, and his family and the family of the late Savita Halappanavar and I don’t want to add to it in any way by making any more general comment at this time,” he said.
“The fact that Dr Ciaran McLoughlin has conducted this inquest with authority and thoroughness must be registered, as must my intention to ensure that everything we learn from this inquest, from the clinical review, and from the Hiqa examination of this tragedy, will feed into guidelines, protocols and checklists in maternity and other hospitals to keep patients safe. It’s important also to state that many changes have already been implemented, including the putting in place of an early-warning score system in maternity hospitals to monitor the wellbeing of patients,” Mr Reilly said.