Monday 15 May 2017

Universal access to Foetal Anomaly screening to be made for Women Nationwide


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.

No comments:

Post a Comment