Following the burial today of a young woman, who was kept on life support while clinically dead due to legal considerations about her pregnancy, we must consider the legacy of the Eighth Amendment.
Everyone’s talking about the Oscar Pistorius verdict, staff at University Hospital Galway being disciplined and Leo Varadkar responding to criticism from the Taoiseach.
Dr James Reilly requested the watchdog to examine the “safety, quality and standards of services” following the deaths of a number of babies at Portlaoise Hospital.
A HIQA report into the death of Savita Halappanavar revealed that many of the recommendations issued after the death of Tania McCabe six years ago have not been implemented.
The West/North West Hospital Group said that, if appropriate, staff will be referred to the proper authorities but that “in many instances there will be no case to answer.”
The Tánaiste said that the report into the death of Savita Halappanavar raised fundemental questions about whether ‘there somebody not doing their job or not’.
National Maternity Hospital clinical director, Dr Peter Boylan, has raised concerns about the level of staffing in maternity care in response to the third report into the death of Savita Halappanavar published yesterday.
The Irish Times reports this morning that a termination of a twin pregnancy was carried out on a patient at risk of sepsis – the first to be performed under new legislation.
Tonight’s vote on the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill probably won’t end the public debate about abortion – and the women we all claim to care about deserve better than the unfair language that has been used recently, writes Aisling Twomey.
THE NUMBER OF people in hospital with Covid-19 on Monday night fell to the lowest level since New Year’s Eve.
There were 494 patients in hospital at 8pm on Monday, the first time this number has fallen below 500 so far in 2021. It has also fallen significantly since a peak of 2,020 cases in mid-January.
Last night a further 359 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in Ireland, representing the lowest number of cases reported on a single day since mid-December.
On 23 February, Taoiseach Micheál Martin announced the government’s new Living with Covid-19 plan and confirmed that the current public health restrictions will remain in place until 5 April, when a further review will be carried out.
Ahead of the unveiling of the plan, Minister Michael McGrath told RTÉ’s News at One that “there can be no fourth wave coming to Ireland”, adding that “what we are doing now, we need to make sure that we are doing for the last time”.
In the North, Stormont’s First Minister Arlene Foster last night vowed that Northern Ireland must never return to lockdown after a cautious plan to ease restrictions was published.
So, today we want to know… Do you think this will be Ireland’s last Level 5 lockdown?
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