COMMENT
By Ger Colleran
Unacceptable delay in inquiry after Tatenda’s tragic death
You don’t have to be a member of the Supreme Court to know that justice delayed is justice denied.
However, someone should really mention that to the HSE. Last September an inquest jury returned a verdict of medical misadventure to explain the death of 34-year-old mother Tatenda Mukwata at University Hospital Kerry on April 21, 2022. Ms Mukwata, a native of Zimbabwe, died just hours after giving birth by caesarean section to her fourth child, Eva.
Her death came after catastrophic bleeding and shock due to uterine arterial venous malformation and the inquest jury found that the death was probably preventable.
Significantly, the jury recommended that all the circumstances surrounding Ms Mukwata’s death be investigated. Other recommendations regarding management and organisation of work, staff training and the establishment of an emergency response team at the hospital were also made.
It’s to be hoped that such recommendations were not just empty and wishful optimism.
It also has to be said that a verdict of ‘medical misadventure’ really doesn’t advance to any real degree the demands for accountability.
That’s, presumably, what an HSE report into this awful death was supposed to provide and initially that report was to be completed by January 2023, nine months after the death.
Despite the obvious urgency of the issue, the review completion date has been pushed out, with delay following delay. And despite the inquest jury being informed that the report would be completed last October, it is still not done, more than TWO YEARS after Ms Mukwata died.
In fairness to the HSE, at least part of the delay is grounded on concerns that ‘natural justice’ be afforded to any person who may be impacted by the review. UHK General Manager Mary Fitzgerald is right to insist on assurances that any such staff members have sight of the review as relating to them and be able to provide feedback.
Ms Fitzgerald has now indicated to the Mukwata family that the report will be available to them on the 11th of May. That’s progress.
But it also has to be said that this report into such a terrible loss of life should not have taken this long. The family’s grief has been exacerbated by this inordinate delay. And that’s simply wrong, because they’ve suffered enough already.
The HSE should have been able to marry appropriate concerns about natural justice for all concerned with the equally just demands of the family for a timely report.
After all the pain, after all the unspeakable agony caused by Ms Mukwata’s death at such a young age, surely to goodness the HSE must recognise that? Surely?
