When Bar Mendez McConnon was 36 weeks pregnant with her second son, her doctors at the National Maternity Hospital of Ireland in Holles Street gave her bad news.
“The baby wasn’t growing”, she recalls. “He wasn’t getting the nutrients he needed from my placenta”.
Her Irish lead consultant in Holles Street diagnosed an IUGR – intra-uterine growth restriction. This is a common condition seen in women suffering a high degree of maternal stress. And Mrs. Mendez O’Connell had suffered stress.
It was March of 2024.
One of her family’s neighbours in Israel – the country of her birth – had been taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th of the previous year. Her family, which lives in the north of Israel near the town of Qiryat Shemona, had been evacuated south because of the attacks by Hezbollah. Many members of her family were temporarily homeless by the threat of Hezbollah attacks. Others had been called up for military duty. Many members of her family, and friends, she said, were experiencing severe danger.
It was in this context that, on the Friday before her c-section, scheduled for the following Monday, when Mendez McConnon was just 36 weeks pregnant, her consultant was running through the possible causes of her baby’s complications, and doing her best to reassure her.
“I was explaining to him”, she told Gript, “the various stresses and strains my family had been under during what was a very intense time for us personally over the previous few months. And he was agreeing that the very stressful situation for my family and I was likely a complicating factor. That was the only context in which the war in Gaza was raised. Not in a political context, but in the context of the affect on me as a pregnant mother going through a lot of family-related stress. I would not normally be discussing political affairs with my doctor”.
“Obviously it was a time of deep worry. My son had all sorts of complications. He was weighing just 2kg. As a mother you worry about whether he will be okay, or whether he will have serious problems. My consultant was just so great, and reassuring. I had great confidence in the medical team.”
But that was about to change.
When her consultant left the room, a second doctor who is female and Irish decided to turn the conversation back to the subject of the war in Gaza, but in an entirely different context.
“Out of the blue, she (the second doctor) said that she was just thinking of all the suffering the mothers and babies in Gaza, and how what was happening there was disgusting, and how awful it is what you people are doing over there”.
In a letter of complaint to the National Maternity Hospital, seen by Gript, Mendez McConnon says that the female doctor continued:
“by launching into a harsh critique of my nation, using terms such as “inhuman” and accusing my people of violating international law. She spoke of the suffering of Palestinians, clearly aware of my Israeli identity. Her comments were not only inappropriate but deeply offensive, especially given my vulnerable state. I was in a hospital room, at a critical juncture in my pregnancy, and her words cut deeply, exacerbating my already high stress levels.
Feeling utterly shocked and vulnerable, I sought clarification, asking her what she meant by her statements. Rather than de-escalating, she continued her tirade. At that moment, I felt utterly helpless. The trust I had in the medical team, a trust that is vital when one’s life and the life of a newborn are at stake, was shattered. I had placed my faith in the medical professionals around me, and her actions betrayed that trust in a profound way.
Mendez McConnon asked the doctor to leave and expressed discomfort with the doctor’s continued presence on her medical team.
“But I was scared”, she says. That night, she went home and recorded a 12-minute video recounting her experience, but chose not to publish it.
“I was worried”, she says, “that this woman was only saying what she believed about me. And that others on my team might feel similarly and not speak up. That these people who would deliver my child and be responsible for my safety felt like I did”.
In a letter to Mrs Mendez McConnon, seen by Gript, the National Maternity Hospital accepts her complaint and provides an apology from the doctor in question, who says that she “sincerely apologises for any distress I caused the patient that day….. it was inappropriate on my behalf to engage in any political discussion in a clinical environment and inappropriate to hint at my own personal views”.
The hospital itself wrote to Mendez McConnon that it “would like to offer you our sincere apologies for the distress this situation has caused you at this important time. We are here to provide care to our women and their families in a professional and supportive manner, and we did not meet this standard on this occasion”.
Mrs Mendez McConnon says that she came to Ireland in her 20s, more than a dozen years ago. Here, she met her Irish husband, a musician. When they got married, the wedding invitations comprised maps of Ireland and Israel connected by a heart. “We are proudly an Irish Israeli family”, she says. “My husband was hoping to find a GAA club for the boys in Israel, but had to settle for Rugby”.
Mendez McConnon was one of a group of Jewish-Irish citizens to meet with Taoiseach Micheál Martin in June 2024, during which she recounted her story of her treatment in Holles Street. The Taoiseach promised to investigate the situation and take action, though she is unaware of any actions having been taken.
Mendez McConnon says she does not want to single out the doctor involved, and requested that this media outlet not identify the person concerned. In the circumstances, we are happy to abide by her request. She was also full of praise for her primary consultant who she stresses provided a very high standard of care.
However, she says that the incident, and others, left her shaken. “I was afraid to wear my Star of David necklace around my neck”, she says. “I love Ireland. It was my home for many years. It is my husband’s homeland. Our children will always be Irish and Jewish and Israeli. But I did not feel safe, after that sustained verbal attack on me in that hospital during the most vulnerable time of my life”.
Mrs Mendez McConnon, her husband, and their children Tommy and Oz, moved to Israel permanently in late 2024.
Later, a few days after her son Oz was born, Mendez McConnon says that a Jewish prayer, inscribed in Hebrew, was placed by her mother in her son’s ICU unit.
When a nurse at the hospital spotted it and enquired from Mendez McConnon’s Irish, Catholic husband what it was, he told the nurse that it was a Jewish prayer.
“No wonder you are in the private ward, so”, the nurse responded. “You people are good with the money”.
The Irish Government continues to insist that Ireland has no problem involving institutionalised or widespread antisemitism.
The National Maternity Hospital was contacted for comment.