Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I also thank the Cathaoirleach for all he has been doing over the last year. While we are engaging in a bogus debate about the non-existent future influence of the Religious Sisters of Charity and procedures at a future national maternity hospital, the negligence, and the heartlessness of the existing secular medical establishment has been very much on show but received practically no comment in these Houses. I am referring, of course, to the tragedy of the death of Christopher Kiely as a result of a misdiagnosis of trisomy 18 and negligence by the National Maternity Hospital and the Merion Fetal Health Clinic. People were warned about the possibilities of such medical mishaps but contrast Christopher's tragic death with the tragedy of what happened to Savita Halappanavar. In that case, a mistake in the handling of her care gave others the opportunity to claim, wrongly, that it was an overly-restrictive law that had led to her death. This is a case where a rushed, overly permissive, carelessly heartless and negligently applied law, cost a child his life and broke the heart of his parents. One of the tragedies was the near operatic levels of certainty with which the consultant obstetrician in the case told the parents of Christopher, that there was no hope of survival after the initial chorionic villus sampling, CVS, test. Then there was the misrepresentation of the confirmation of the eventual results when they said it was theoretically a small chance that he did not have trisomy 18. The parents were left to find out for themselves just how obvious it was that he did not. There were further outrages, including the lack of an apology and the profit motive of Merrion Fetal Health Clinic which offered a couple a discount if they took the initial harmony test on the same day at the scan. There is also the fact that the guidelines, hastily prepared, were not followed.

The family believes that the current practice not to wait for the results of the chorionic villus karyotyping analysis, where genetic anomaly is suspected in the case of a normal scan needs to stop. There needs to be a public inquiry. How many other parents have lost a child because of this type of misdiagnosis and reckless haste since the new law came in? The idea that voluntary hospitals can be subjected to an independent inquiry by the Government is dishonest rubbish when we know there have been inquiries into the church and abuse, when the church is not under State control either. It needs to be said that those who are worried about the new law introduced people to the Houses of the Oireachtas who spoke are feeling pressurised by doctors where anomalies were being diagnosed. There were warnings about the possibility of such mistakes in these cases. However campaigning journalists, activist and perhaps profit-seeking doctors and reckless politicians contributed to a situation where we have a non-scrutinised law. The very least we can do for the memory of Christopher, and in support of his parents who have asked for changes in the way these practices are carried out, is to have an inquiry. The Minister of Health needs to be able to tell people in how many cases this kind of misdiagnosis has happened and what is being done to ensure that it can never happen again. We all, but especially those who rushed through this legislation, need to reflect on what they have done.