Harris finally agrees to meet husband over Malak’s death
SIMON Harris has agreed to meet the husband of a woman who bled to death in Holles Street hospital last year.
The Health Minister last night wrote to Alan Thawley’s lawyers and extended the offer to meet face-to-face next week to discuss the case of his wife, Malak.
Mr Thawley is looking for an independent review of her death in May 2016.
The minister has already said he is seriously considering his request and on Thursday night told the Dáil he had appointed two senior HSE officials to review aspects of an internal review carried out by National Maternity Hospital staff last year.
Mr Thawley has repeatedly sought a face-to-face meeting
Not happy with internal review
with the minister, and after he was urged to meet him by Fianna Fáil’s Jack Chambers, the minister told deputies he intended to arrange a meeting.
Last night’s letter now confirms the meeting could finally go ahead.
Ms Thawley, 34, died at Holles Street hospital last year after a blood vessel was accidentally cut during an operation for an ectopic pregnancy.
Mr Harris has asked former Rotunda Hospital master Dr Peter McKenna to provide an assessment of the case.
He has also asked Patrick Lynch, the HSE’s national director of quality assurance and verification, to examine how the National Maternity Hospital conducted the investigation into Mrs Thawley’s death.
Mr Thawley had earlier expressed anger that the Health Minister had appointed experts to review the findings without consulting him first.
Mr Thawley had made it clear he wanted be involved in any process that led to what should be a full independent review into Malak’s death.
Instead, his lawyers were given a few hours’ notice before the minister stood up in the Dáil late on Thursday night and announced the HSE has been asked to review the way the National Maternity Hospital (Holles Street) investigated Malak’s death during a routine operation. Only after questioning by Fianna Fáil’s Jack Chambers, did he finally agree to meet Mr Thawley.
Mr Thawley wants an independent external review into his wife’s death. He is not happy with the internal review carried out by Holles Street and does not believe the subsequent inquest fully answered questions he still has about her death.
When she walked into Holles Street on May 8, 2016, Mrs Thawley was seven weeks pregnant with the couple’s first child.
A scan in a private clinic beforehand had shown her unborn child was developing in one of her fallopian tubes and she was later told to go to Holles Street.
But the 33-year-old was fatally injured during a routine surgical procedure to prevent the pregnancy from developing further.
Last night, Mr Thawley’s solicitor, Caoimhe Haughey, said: ‘The intervention of the minister is interesting, but Alan does not understand why he was unable to speak to him first.
‘When I wrote to him, the minister was specifically asked if Alan could meet him face to face and discuss things before any decisions were taken. The fact that two people have been asked to look into Malak’s case totally flies in the face of what Alan had asked.
‘He feels very angry and I feel the decision by Minister Harris to just go ahead without even calling me was extremely insensitive.
Minister Harris told the Dáil he was considering Mr Thawley’s request for an independent review ‘with the seriousness it rightly deserves’.
He said he had asked Dr McKenna, the clinical lead of the new National Women and Infant’s Programme, and his team to examine both the coroner’s report and the National Maternity Hospital report.