Tag Archives: Savita Halappanavar

Michael Pidgeon writes:

I know ye have Irish readers here in Brussels [Belgium] so I just thought I’d mention that we’re having a protest at the Irish Embassy (above) at 6pm tonight, in memory of Savita and against the current laws on abortion. We’d really appreciate a mention. A few hundred people are expected to turn up, as we also have support from some local Belgian groups.

 

Brussels Vigil For Savita (Facebook)

Other events around the world today here.

Earlier: Last Night In New York

 

He’d phone him but the old Nokia is playing up.

Leaders’ Questions Live (RTE)

Previously: Praveen’s Concerns

The vigil for Savita Halappanavar outside the Irish Consulate in Manhattan yesterday evening.

“Those of you who are not Irish, let me ask you something, and I ask you this with a heavy heart, because I do love my country, and I would love you to go there, and to love it too: I ask you to revise the positive impressions you may have had of the country up to now. Or, rather, park them; put those impressions aside. Because this overpowers everything. This changes everything. Until this Government does what the people are calling on it to do, I cannot in good conscience ask you to think well of my country, or to travel there. I can point you towards those 20,000 marchers in Dublin, certainly, and I can tell you how proud they make me, how moved I was by the photographs of their gathering – the only gathering worth our while until this changes. But nothing seems to worry this Government more than its image on an international scale, and so international solidarity, and international support for these calls for action are vital.

…Campaigners in Ireland have called this Savita’s Law, and tonight we join with the demand that the Irish government address this need to legislate as a matter of the greatest urgency. We are saying to them very clearly, nothing less will do. They must ensure that a tragedy like Savita’s never happens again, and they need to legislate now so that that suffering like Savita’s cannot be allowed to happen unnecessarily in Irish hospitals. And when they do that, I encourage you to think about Ireland in positive terms again.”

Belinda McKeon.

Organised by Annette Clancy (Pic 1) Belinda McKeon (pic 3), Max McGuinness (pic 5) and Colum McCann (pic 10)

Pics Hiroki Kobayashi

Meanwhile, last night in the dail:

And on Al Jazeera’s ‘The Stream’:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx8BZPc9a5c

Gerard O’Donnell, solicitor for Savita Halappanavar’s family spoke with Pat Kenny this morning on RTE R1 to relay Savita’s husband Praveen’s concerns over the make-up of the HSE inquiry.

Up to this afternoon the inquiry panel, included three consultants from University College Hospital Galway, the hospital where Savita died.

During the interview, Mr O’Donnell confirmed that, according to Praveen, the decision to not allow for a termination at the hospital was made… at consultant level.

Gerard O’Donnell: “(Praveen) has no faith in the HSE. It’s important to remember that he lost his wife, whilst under the care of the HSE. He feels that anybody who was appointed by the HSE, and paid for by the HSE, to conduct an inquiry into his wife’s death won’t meet the criteria that we would advise him as lawyers of getting to the truth.”
Kenny: “Now each individual who is in this team of seven, including the chairman, is an eminent person in their own right and in their own field. Is it simply that three of them are attached to University College Hospital Galway and it’s simply that?”

O’Donnell: “No, it’s not. It goes beyond that. One must remember that she died whilst in the care of the HSE. The HSE will be paying those to adjudicate upon that. Effectively, they’re on the payroll. We want evidence to be taken under oath, where it can be properly tested, by cross examination and all the proper legal procedures of an inquiry, an oral inquiry, held in public, to be adopted by the minister.”

Kenny: “So even if the three members of the committee, from the hospital in Galway were to step down voluntarily, with replacements from far and wide, that would not suffice for the family’s concerns?”

O’Donnell: “No again, because this is an inquiry that’s proposed to be held in private, a confidential inquiry. Evidence will not be given under oath, it won’t be cross-examined. So we wouldn’t be satisfied with that and nor would our client.”

Kenny: “It was suggested that your client Praveen is prepared to wait, if that is what it takes, and last night, on the Frontline, Joan Burton said the findings of this committee would not necessarily do away with the emergence of a sworn public inquiry at a later date.”

O’Donnell: “I just don’t know how the HSE will conduct an inquiry without his consent. They would have to look at her records. And we haven’t given any records, any consent, and neither has my client, to her records being, to Savita’s records to being looked at.”

Kenny: “One would expect that Praveen himself would be an important witness in this regard. He was by his wife’s side pretty much continuously in the throes of her final illness or her illness. If he is not prepared to testify then this committee of inquiry will go nowhere.”

O’Donnell: “That’s correct and he was with her right throughout, from when she went into the hospital on the Sunday until she died the following Sunday, or Saturday night, late on Saturday night. He was there with her all the time. He is a very, very important witness. He witnessed the request for a termination on a few occasions and he will be essential to any inquiry.”

Kenny: “Can you share with us, at what level this request was made, was it at consultant level, or at midwife level, or at nursing level?”

O’Donnell: “It was made at consultant level.”

Kenny: “At consultant level.”

Earlier: Farce

An Independent Inquiry

(Asia Press)

 

Above: Praveen and Savita Halappanavar Dr. Philip Crowley, HSE National Director of Quality and Patient Safety.

The husband of the late Savita Halappanavar wants employees of Galway University Hospital removed from the inquiry established by the Health Service Executive into her death.

Praveen Halappanavar said last night he would request through his solicitor that Prof John J Morrison, a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology; Dr Catherine Fleming, consultant in infectious diseases; and Dr Brian Harte, consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care at the hospital, be removed from the inquiry.

…[He said] It does bother me that there are people from Galway hospital on the inquiry. I would prefer no Galway people on the inquiry. I will basically request that there be no-one from Galway on it.”

Husband Objects To Inquiry Members (Kitty Holland, Martin Wall, Irish Times)

(Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)

(Cover Asia Press/Daily Mail)

Like a boss.

Then there’s Judith Woods in the Telegraph. “What a shameful time to be Irish, Catholic and anti-abortion,” she writes affectingly. “As I’m all three, I hang my head in mortification.” She goes on to explain why she hopes Halappanavar’s case won’t lead to liberalisation in Ireland: “Once you have seen four cells under a microscope in an IVF laboratory and by some miracle witnessed them become an embryo, then a foetus, a baby, a little girl, it is utterly impossible not to believe that life begins at the moment sperm and egg fuse.”

If Woods understands IVF, presumably she knows that several embryos are created for each attempted pregnancy: treating each one as if it were the moral equivalent of a child would mean implanting them all, and exposing the woman to the dangers of multiple pregnancy – and the embryos to a competitive uterine environment that would mean none of them survive. Even the self-professedly pro-life tend to recognise in practice that women must control their fertility, or be dragged under by the consequences. Savita was a living woman, full of light and love, and in her last duress doctors denied her that control. The poverty of anti-abortion rationalisations tells us exactly how little value such logic really places on women’s lives.

 

After Savita Halappanavar’s Death, The Brutal Irony Of ‘Pro-Life’ Is Exposed (Sarah Ditum, Guardian)

 

And he worked in India, too.

Good optics.

The seven-member team will be chaired by Prof Sabaratnam Arulkumaran (above), head of obstetrics and gynaecology at St George’s University of London.
Prof Arulkumaran said that over the next three days the team would review the case notes, look at guidelines and interview people.
The HSE said the investigation would be completed within an “expeditious timeframe”.

 

HSE AnnounRces Details Of Savita Halappanavar Investigation (RTE)

Professor Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has expressed his distress at some of the reaction to the death of Savita Halappanavar. The archbishop challenged assertions that Ireland was not a safe country in which to be pregnant. “The facts show us we have in fact one of the lowest levels of maternal mortality in the world, which means that whatever practices we have are producing the results that we should respect,” he said.

The fact that Ireland had few maternal deaths showed that where conflicts arose over treatment options they have been resolved successfully, he added.

Minister for Health James Reilly said yesterday that a Government decision on providing clarity on abortion was unlikely before the new year.

Dr Reilly said he would be bringing the expert groups report on abortion to the Cabinet on Tuesday week but that consultation would be needed before a decision was reached.

Everyone relax. Bottler and the Bishop are on the case.

Archbishop defends record on pregnancy (Paul Cullen, Patsy McGarry, Kitty Holland, Irish Times)

(Sasko Lazarov, Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)