An external review has commenced into the death of a mother in a Kerry hospital after giving birth to a baby girl.
Tatenda Faith Mukwata, who lived in Kenmare, died in University Hospital Kerry on April 21st, having given birth to a daughter, Eva.
She was mother to four daughters and is survived by her parents, brother, and grandmother and lived at the Atlantic Lodge direct provision centre.
The Kerryman reports that the South/Southwest Hospital Group, which the hospital is part of, has confirmed a review is ongoing into her death.
The hospital group said that “following a maternal death at UHK on the 21st of April an expert external review immediately commenced at the hospital”.
It added that management and staff at University Hospital Kerry wished to “extend their deepest sympathies” to Ms Mukwata’s family.
At her funeral, parish priest Father George Hayes described the “special memories” of Tatenda’s loved ones of a “vibrant and a caring mother, memories of a loving daughter and of a dear friend”.
The death of Ms Mukwata will bring renewed focus to the issue of maternal safety and resourcing of Irish maternity hospitals.
Following the death of Savita Halappanavar, the government established The National Maternity Strategy group who were tasked with developing standards and processes to improve maternal safety.
Revelations that funding for the National Maternity Strategy had been curtailed by then Minister Simon Harris to provide abortions was a matter of controversy.
In 2019, to Róisín Molloy, a patient representative on the National Maternity Strategy steering group said “the money that had been intended to go on the maternity strategy was effectively being spent on abortion services since January of this year”.
The following year, another representative, Mark Molloy, whose baby son died unnecessarily as a result of failings at Portlaoise hospital, also resigned, saying the HSE Service Plan was providing only a fraction of the funding originally promised for the national maternity strategy.
“Medical negligence claims are going through the roof, and most of them are obstetric. And yet the plan could only fund a fraction – 12 per cent – of the €8 million a year that was promised for the strategy,” he told the Irish Times.
“The plan, which aimed to develop quality, safe, consistent and well-resourced care in the State’s 19 maternity units, was developed in response to official recommendations following the death of Savita Halappanavar in a Galway hospital in 2012. Many of its 77 recommendations have yet to be fully implemented,” the paper then reported.
“Launched by Mr Varadkar when he was minister for health in 2016, the 10-year maternity strategy was originally provided with ringfenced funding but most of this money was diverted last year to pay for the new abortion service.”