Myself and
Kevin are delighted to announce the passing of a Dail Motion by Sinn Fein’s
Health Spokesperson T.D Louise O’Reilly who highlighted the current issues
within Irelands Maternity Services. The motion included universal access to
foetal anomaly screening across all Maternity Hospitals Nationwide, the full
implementation of the National Maternity Strategy and a commitment to work with
nursing and medical unions in the recruitment and retention of medical staff so
that all maternity hospitals meet the ‘Birth rate plus standard’ for midwifery
staffing, as well as international standards for consultant obstetricians and
gynecologists.
Louise O’Reilly
has called on the Minister for Health to swiftly implement the commitments made
in the Dail with regards to the National Maternity Hospitals, she said that it
is now up to the Government to stand by their commitment and that she will be
following up with the Minister to ensure implementation of these incentives.
This is a major victory for Women’s Health and the Minister must now accept the
collective will of the Dail and act on the motion.
Words will
never be able to describe our emotions, we are still travelling through our
journey of loss, but we will always truly believe our angel was sent to us for
a reason and this news just proved that.
Since the
day I received a message from Cllr Damien Quigg who showed so much compassion
for our campaign and pure dedication we believed as a small group of people we
can make change. Cllr Damien Quigg connected us with T.D Louise O’Reilly during
our Dublin visit for my Ireland AM interview, and I will always remember
sitting in the room with my good friend Shauna, a fellow heart mum while we
both told her our stories, I knew instantly from her reaction that she would
not rest until our voices were heard and that is exactly what she did.
All those
parents who spoke out about their heartbreaking experiences, the media who took
it in their stride to share our journeys, to Cllr Damien Quigg who supported
our campaign and set us in a direction were we would not have been able to go
without him, and to T.D Louise O’Reilly who made not only our voices heard but
the voices of all our angels in a place where change can be made, once implemented
babies lives will be saved as a diagnosis will be made prior to birth, and
parents to be, will be getting the service they deserve.
Its been
such an incredibly hard time for us this last year and our Isabella’s birthday
and anniversary is only around the corner but I truly hope with all my heart that
she knows she helped make this change.
In memory of our Isabella, our very own angel.
