Mother of baby who died at Portlaoise to meet Varadkar

A woman whose baby daughter died at Portlaoise hospital explained how her infant’s body was brought to her in a metal box on a wheelchair, draped in a sheet.

Janice Boland, whose first child Caitlin died in 2006 from a condition that had not been diagnosed before birth, spoke candidly of her experience at the hospital which became the subject of an investigation following the deaths of a number of children.

Ms Boland said she was dismayed by her treatment and her later, positive experience in the Coombe Hospital in Dublin was "like a different planet".

"It caused humungous pain...[it was] the loss of your dream and in that hospital [Caitlin]was just another number in their world, but to us as parents she was our world and it just seemed to shatter," she told the Kildare Today programme on KFM.

Ms Boland and her husband are due to meet with Health Minister Leo Varadkar at Portlaoise hospital today along with other families affected by the controversy. Mr Varadkar is due to inspect facilities at the hospital since the publication of the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) report last week.

“It’s been an extremely traumatic time but to hear from Hiqa...they were very good, they were briefing us with regards to how to cope with this report,” Ms Boland said.

“It’s been really following us for nine years and scarred us and left a real legacy on our lives.”

After undergoing a caesarean section, she said she had begged to see her child whose body was in refrigeration.

“I missed her so much that I wanted her and they brought her to me in a tin box in a wheelchair with a sheet. I simply asked the nurse: why was she being brought to me [in that way], she wasn’t a freak. I was told that it would be very upsetting to other mothers to see the dead child.”

She got very upset and was told to stop crying so as not to upset the other mothers in the ward.

During the interview, Ms Boland appeared determined to defend the good work of the HSE, and praised Hiqa for undertaking a difficult job in investigating the plight of affected families.

She welcomed the positive developments at the hospital, particularly the provision of a separate trauma room “away from where mums can hear babies crying in the middle of the night, knowing that your baby is forever silent.

“Because for me that was one of the absolute hardest things in the middle of the night to see and hear babies all around you crying and mine was in the fridge.

“It was horrific and I jumped many a time just to check my baby but then it would dawn on me that she had passed.”

When she and her husband eventually found the hospital morgue it was not a peaceful place but rather, it was filled with hoses, gutters and trays, she recalled.

“You have to wander around a hospital on your own. We got lost looking for the morgue, nobody was with us.”