Woman awarded €170k in damages after suing HSE over stillborn baby
A mother who lost her baby because a hospital sent her on a two hour ambulance journey without a blood transfusion on board has been awarded damages of €170,000.
Thirty-six year old Fiona Ní Chonchubhair from Countess Road, Killarney had her baby delivered stillborn by Caesarean section having travelled 71 miles from Kerry General Hospital to Cork Regional Hospital in May 2009.
Fiona Ní Chonchubhair was 32 weeks pregnant and bleeding internally – she was operated on but lost the baby boy who was delivered still-born.
Lawyers for the HSE apologised for what happened which Mr Justice Sean Ryan has described as 'an example of disastrous incompetence' that is 'scarcely credible' in this day and age.
The court heard the mother of three and former dentist suffers from bereavement and post traumatic stress disorder and experiences flashbacks, anger and nightmares.
