Sir, – Your editorial "Concluding a sorry saga" (May 26th) on the Maternity Clinical Complaints Review makes for sad reading. The fact that the review only happened after RTÉ highlighted the pattern of failure in Portlaoise hospital is alarming. The fact that hospital management failed to respond after eight baby deaths is a symptom of poorly run organisation. A patient-focused organisation would react to a weak signal in a strong way. A spending-averse organisation might only respond to a very strong signal in a very weak way. – Yours, etc,
DERMOT O’ROURKE,
Lucan,
Co Dublin.
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Sir, – An aspect of patient management mentioned in the Maternity Clinical Complaints Review is the difficulty patients had in obtaining release of copies of their hospital files when they requested them ("Maternity care saga has not been resolved by HSE review", Analysis, May 24th). The review does not make any specific recommendation in regard to this, but it seems clear that the HSE should adopt a policy of immediate release of photocopies of patient files within a few working days of such a request, not just for maternity patients but for all patients. – Yours, etc,
LESLIE LAWLESS,
Dublin 4.