A group of women from Monaghan will today seek a date in the High Court for the hearing of an action by them against the North Eastern Health Board over its suspension of maternity services at Monaghan General Hospital.
The suspension of the service in February 2001 has caused uproar in Monaghan and led to several protest marches. It also led to major controversy last December when a young Emyvale woman, in an advanced stage of labour, was not allowed to deliver her baby at the hospital.
Instead Ms Denise Livingstone was sent by ambulance on a 25- mile journey in the middle of the night to Cavan General Hospital. On route she gave birth to a premature baby girl who died within hours.
The incident was the subject of three inquiries, one by the health board, one by the health board's medical adviser and another by an independent team appointed by the Minister for Health, Mr Martin. That team found Ms Livingstone should not have been transferred to Cavan. There were calls on Mr Martin to resign.
Now five local women, including Ms Livingstone, are set to challenge the health board's decision to suspend maternity services at the hospital. The other plaintiffs in the action taken by Monaghan General Hospital Development Committee are her sister Ms Sharon O'Neill; local Sinn Féin councillor and mother of five Ms Brenda McAnespic; Ms Shauna Tierney and Ms Maura Sherlock.
The committee was involved in a previous High Court action in 1984 when the then Minister for Health, Mr Barry Desmond, threatened to discontinue obstetric, gynaecology and paediatric services at the hospital after a decision was taken to build a new general hospital in Cavan.
The High Court at that time held that the units could be closed but the Supreme Court subsequently ruled that the Minister, in proposing the closures, had acted outside his powers. It said he had no power under the 1970 Health Act to close a department of a hospital.
The present action by the Monaghan Hospital Development Committee began in 2001.
At an initial hearing, the health board rejected the committee's assertion that it had been trying to run down the hospital since Mr Desmond's tenure as Minister for Health in the 1980s.
It said it temporarily suspended maternity services after a review found the provision of such services was no longer viable, based on recommendations from the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.