Madam, - It will be of little consolation to her grieving parents but the short life of Bronagh Livingstone serves as a wake-up call to all of us involved in predicting, planning, and delivering healthcare. Medical, political and administrative heads should hang with the shame of her birth circumstances and her brief life.
The Minister of Health and the health board involved have their own remorse to deal with and their own lessons to learn from this tragedy. Sadly but predictably, the buck-passing began within hours of her passing with allegations and innuendoes bouncing here and there from those who fear a bundle of blame landing on their doorstep.
Let us hope that the medical profession does not join them and attempt to absolve itself from censure. The late Dr Richard Asher, a London physician included overspecialisation in his list of the seven deadly sins of medicine. Asher was labelled an eccentric by his colleagues but he wisely counselled that the worst feature of specialisation is that it makes doctors feel they are doing wrong to deal with even the simplest cases if it lies within the protected area of somebody else's speciality.
It is a sad testament to so-called advances in medicine that in this year of 2002 only a tiny fraction of Irish doctors have the skill to assess or assist a woman in childbirth. It should also be noted by an increasingly litigious society that even if they were to develop and maintain these skills, insurance premiums approaching half-a-million euro annually now puts obstetric practice out of reach except for a few dozen obstetricians whose insurance is mostly paid by the State.
It might be of some solace to her family and the rightfully angry people of Monaghan if the Minister was to commemorate Bronagh's brief life by granting true representation of patients and local populations on health boards. It would be a fitting memory to a fighting little girl whose cry we failed to hear. - Yours, etc.,
Dr MAURICE GUÉRET, Fortfield Road, Terenure, Dublin 6w.