THE PARENTS OF baby Mark Molloy, who died 22 minutes after his birth at Portlaoise Hospital, have said they are “very upset” over the outcome of an inquiry into the baby’s care.
Baby Mark Molly in January 2012 at the Midland Regional Hospital in Portlaoise.
Dr A was a registrar at the hospital at the time of the death. He has faced seven allegations of professional misconduct and/or poor professional performance at the inquiry.
Yesterday, the Medical Council determined that it did not find Dr A had failed to adequately review the CTG machine which reads the foetal heart rate, according to RTÉ.
The Fitness to Practice Committee also found that the interpretation of a CTG is subjective to the reader and their experience, RTÉ reported. It added that Dr A was found guilty of professional misconduct on two counts for amending a note on the CTG chart from “satisfactory” to “unsatisfactory”.
The decision as to what sanction to be imposed on the doctor, who cannot be named, will be made at a full meeting of the Medical Council in May.
Speaking to RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland, the baby’s father Mark Molloy said that the family was “taken aback” and “very upset” by the verdict yesterday.
“Time after time, every case we hear on the TV, the radio, comes back to the interpretation of the CTG,” Molloy said.
“Again, I come back to yesterday that the interpretation is subjective, it depends on the readers’ experience, other people around them… and because other people around them didn’t find that there was anything wrong, he didn’t act,” he said.
Other deaths at the hospital
An RTÉ Investigations Unit report in 2014 highlighted the deaths of five babies at the hospital during a six-year period up to 2012.
Speaking of whether they blame the doctors who treated baby Mark during his delivery, Molloy said that his death wasn’t solely down to those who cared for him.
“As far as we’re concerned, we’ve always said that Mark’s death is not solely down to the inactions of the people who were involved in delivering him on the day, there were previous reports into deaths and injuries before Mark’s in Portlaoise and the recommendations of those were not acted upon,” Molloy said.
We cannot continue to keep producing the same recommendations time and time again and no one is held to account for them. There has to be accountability at a management level as far as we’re concerned.
Molloy said that yesterday’s verdict hasn’t given himself or his wife Roisin any closure.
“It just raises more questions for us, really,” he said.
“We’re reminded every day when we look back at pictures of our own boys, when they were five or six and all the memories we have of them, and to think that opportunity is gone for Mark, that he will never experience all those things, it is extremely upsetting for us,” he added.
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