Praise for Cavan General staff by bereaved mother

"I wanted for nothing. In this day and age it is easy to get fixated on the negative of places, but the care and kindness I received I cannot fault," a Cavan mother, whose baby girl died following childbirth at Cavan General Hospital earlier this year, has said of the standard of care she received.

"Everything these days is negative, negative, negative. I sadly did lose my baby as my life was in danger," said the Cavan Town woman, who asked not to be named.
In a letter to The Anglo-Celt this week she explained how, when entering her second trimester, her waters suddenly broke.
She was quickly admitted to Cavan General Hospital (CGH) after contacting the Doc on Call. A trained operator from Ambulance control remained on the phone with her until emergency service personnel arrived.

"From then on the service and care I received was outstanding," she said, outlining how, despite being rushed to A&E, medical staff remained "so calming and professional".
Tragically, the woman would be informed at the hospital's maternity unit that her "waters had broke and all the fluid from around my baby had gone."
Her letter to the Celt was to "acknowledge and recognise" the outstanding care she received while at CGH before and after the loss of her baby.

"Everything these days is negative, negative, negative, I sadly did lose my baby as my life was in danger. However the staff in maternity were so calming, caring, kind thoughtful and so professional."
Paying tribute to all the hospital staff, from the nurses through to the dinner ladies, the woman stated: "I cannot fault one member of staff, not one. I would like to thank them all for helping me through one of the worse experiences of my life. People focus on trolleys in corridors, etc. and it is terrible, but it is not the doctor nor nurses fault. They treated me with such dignity and kindness I honestly cannot thank them enough."
The woman paid tribute to hospital's bereavement counsellor, who she said stayed with her throughout and after the birth of her child.

"She dressed my baby and placed her in a little crib. [She] arranged for the priest to come and say prayers and she took handprints and footprints for me, a thing I never thought of doing."
The woman also spoke glowingly of the aftercare she received, including the assistance given to her in arranging the burial, an occasion the mother feels is something she would "never have wanted to do".
They also provided privacy in a room dedicated to mothers who suffer the loss of a child at childbirth, away from the maternity ward, she added: "[The] hospital gets such a hard time that I had to show what kind caring people there are there and the outstanding care I got words cant express how grateful I am to them."