The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, has ordered a full report from the North Eastern Health Board on the circumstances surrounding the death of a baby born shortly after its mother was refused admission at Monaghan General Hospital.
The baby's 32-year-old mother was taken to the hospital in an advanced stage of labour by her partner at about 5.30 a.m. yesterday. She was not admitted because the hospital's maternity services were controversially suspended last year. Instead she was placed in an ambulance and taken on a 25-mile trip to Cavan General Hospital.
En route, at about 6 a.m., she gave birth and the baby, which was born prematurely, died after arriving at the Cavan hospital.
The incident has angered the Monaghan hospital action group which has been campaigning for months to have maternity and other services restored at the hospital. Their demonstrations have included pickets outside the Dáil.
The North Eastern Health Board, in a statement, said all circumstances surrounding the death of the baby were being reviewed.
"The North Eastern Health Board would like to offer deepest sympathy to the family on their loss. Full support is being and will continue to be offered to the family who will be kept fully informed of the outcome of this review," the statement added.
It is understood part of the review will centre on an allegation that a nurse was sought to travel with the woman in the ambulance but the hospital was unable to provide one.
A spokeswoman for the Minister said he had ordered a full report. Mr Martin also extended his sympathy to the family involved.
The woman at the centre of the controversy was recovering at Cavan General Hospital last night. She is expected to be released today for her baby's funeral.
A sister of the woman whose baby died told The Irish Times last night that the baby was born at 24 weeks, but she claimed this was an irrelevant factor in its death. "I had a baby two years ago born at 27 weeks and only for the Monaghan hospital maternity unit, my child would have died," she said.
Explaining the events leading up to her sister presenting at the hospital early yesterday, she said: "When they got to the hospital they weren't even going to let them in. The doors were locked. The father of the baby kicked up.
"They wouldn't look at her, other than to give her some sort of injection to calm her down, I think. She wanted to push but they wouldn't let her.
"They put her in an ambulance without a nurse or doctor and she had the baby on the way to Cavan."
Her sister, who asked not to be named, was aware maternity services at the hospital were suspended. However, realising she was in an advanced stage of labour, she felt it would take too long to get to Cavan and instead had her partner rush her the six miles from her home in Emyvale to Monaghan.
"I think things would have been different if she was seen in Monaghan. I think the baby would have lived. It cried from the minute it was born until it got to the hospital in Cavan," her sister added. "I feel very angry at what's happened. It's terrible you have to drive past a hospital to get to a hospital."
Mr Peadar McMahon is chairman of the Monaghan Community Alliance, which has been campaigning against the downgrading of the hospital. "This is what we had been hoping wouldn't happen," he said
"During the summer, a 38-year-old woman who lived six minutes from Monaghan hospital was taken by ambulance on a 45-minute journey to a hospital in Dundalk after complaining of chest pain. She died in the ambulance five minutes outside Dundalk. Since then we have had a number of close shaves and unfortunately now it looks like we have another needless death."
The vice-chairman of the Friends of Monaghan Hospital Dublin support group, Mr Cyril McAree, said it was incredible that a woman in labour would be turned away from a hospital in this day and age.