A man whose wife and newborn son died within 33 hours of each other at Cork University Maternity Hospital says he has no faith in the system and very little confidence that seismic changes will occur to prevent other families from experiencing such traumatic loss.
Mother of three Marie Downey passed away on her husband Kieran's birthday on March 25th, 2019. He had been due to collect her and their four day old son Darragh when he was called to attend at the hospital and informed Marie was dead. Darragh died the following day.
A three day inquest at Cork Coroner's Court determined that Marie suffered an epileptic seizure in her private hospital room failing out of the bed and trapping her newborn son under her. The inquest heard that Darragh's life could possibly have been saved if a member of staff had found mother and baby within four minutes or so of the tragedy occurring.
A jury recorded a verdict of medical misadventure in the case.
Reacting to the verdict widower Kieran Downey said the HSE was "chaotic" and needed to make huge changes and stressed that his wife and son deserved more than the HSE getting involved in a ticking of the box exercise with no real concrete changes.
He spoke to reporters after the verdict was handed down - listen here.
