HSE în contact cu familiile afectate de investigațiile privind nașterea a nouă bebeluși la Portiuncula   

THE HSE HAS said all families directly impacted by external reviews into the delivery of nine babies at Portiuncula University Hospital (PUH) in Ballinasloe, Co Galway have been contacted.
Tony Canavan, Regional Executive Officer of the HSE West and North West, added that the HSE have been in discussions with them and that contact will be made again when the reviews are completed.
Yesterday, the HSE announced that external reviews are currently underway into the delivery of nine babies in PUH. 
Canavan told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that these reviews were prompted by “concern for the mothers who have, and will in the future, use services at Portiuncula”.
Since 2024, seven babies born in the hospital had hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy, resulting in six of those babies being referred for neonatal hypothermic treatment, also known as “head cooling”.
In 2023, two stillbirths occurred at the hospital and the care provided in relation to these two deliveries are also being reviewed externally.
Meanwhile, one of the cases arose last week.
The review is led by an external consultant obstetrician Dr Mark Skehan and the team includes a director of midwifery and a senior manager.
Canavan told RTÉ that the number of cases referred to for hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) was a “concern”.
Canavan explained that HIE can occur when a baby is deprived of oxygen either immediately before, during, or after birth.
It affects the central nervous system and babies born with HIE may have neurological or developmental problems.
“The treatment for that is described as ‘head cooling’,” said Canavan, “and when a baby is referred for head cooling from one of our hospitals to one of the Dublin hospitals, we report that as an incident and review it to try to understand why it happened and if anything could be done differently or better next time around.”
Each of the nine cases will be reviewed individually and most of them relate to head cooling.
Canavan said concern was first raised at the end of last year, when Portiuncula Hospital informed him of the number of cases that had been referred for head cooling.
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He said the number of cases referred for head cooling was unusually high at the hospital last year.
“Five cases were referred for head cooling, and one other case probably should have, so the incidence was probably six cases for 2024.
“It’s a hospital that had about 1,300 births last year, and we would have expected the rate to be somewhere around one, or maybe two, case referrals last year.”
Canavan said it was “important to understand that clinical incidents occur in hospitals all of the time, and the most important thing is that we are open to identifying incidents when they arise and that we examine and review each one and learn from it”.
Meanwhile, Canavan said Portiuncula is a safe place to have a baby.
“I spent the day in Portiuncula yesterday and it’s very clear all of the staff are highly committed