Sir, – We are writing as two of the widowers involved in two high-profile inquests, the first held in September 2014 for Dhara Kivlehan and the second in December 2014 for Sally Rowlette. At the conclusion to those inquests, we stated to the press that all we ever wanted to know was the truth of what had happened, truth which we could not get any other way than through an inquest.
We live out the impact of the loss of Dhara and Sally’s lives every single day, the loss of our beloved wives and the loss to our five children of their mothers.
We also stated publicly after the inquests that our aim was to ensure that no other family had to go through what we have gone through. We wanted lessons learned in a publicly accountable way so that no other women going into hospital would lose their lives as Dhara and Sally lost theirs. And we did not want widowers to have to fight for an inquest as we had to fight for ours, in Dhara’s case a fight that went on for four years. If Dhara’s inquest had been an automatic undertaking in law, the lessons from her death would have come out in public and the HSE would have been publicly accountable. Had that happened, Sally might not have died three years later.
Clare Daly has introduced a private member’s Bill, the Coroners Bill 2007, with this vital amendment about an automatic inquest for every maternal death.
We will be in the Dáil today to hear the second stage of this Bill. It must be passed. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL KIVLEHAN,
Dromahair,
Co Leitrim;
SEAN ROWLETTE,
Dromore West,
Co Sligo.