Maternal death campaigners hear from human rights expert

Campaigners calling for stricter laws on inquests for maternal deaths heard from a leading human rights expert at their conference over the weekend.

The Elephant Collective, who have called for legislation mandating an automatic inquest following all maternal deaths, invited Fleur van Leeuwen to speak to their conference by Skype.

Istanbul-based Ms van Leeuwen told the conference at NUI Galway that Ireland is failing its international obligations, The Irish Times reports.

She said the idea that Ireland was the safest place to have a baby could be “seriously contested” as it was not meeting obligations under a number of human rights treaties to hold “effective impartial investigations” into all unnatural deaths.

In Ireland, it is up to a coroner to decide whether an inquest should be held into the death of a woman in an Irish maternity hospital.