The facts are simple.

On 28 October, 31 year old Savita Halappanavar died at the University Hospital in Galway, Ireland. She was 17 weeks pregnant and fearing that she was losing the baby she asked for an abortion which was denied on the grounds that the doctor could hear foetal heart sounds. She was told that Ireland is " a Catholic country " so abortion is forbidden. This has resulted in an uproar and yesterday there were processions in many cities in Ireland in sympathy with Savita and calling for a change in abortion laws. The Prime Minister of Ireland, Enda Kenny has said," I don't think that we should say anything about this until we are in possession of all the facts." The facts are simple. No woman must be allowed to die because of pregnancy. That is an unbreakable rule of obstetrics because - 1. Pregnancy is NOT a disease. It is a normal or physiological condition and 2. Pregnancy occurs only in young women. The rule is absolute. The mother must be saved at all costs, even if that means the baby has to be sacrificed. An autopsy has apparently shown the cause of death to be septicaemia which is a life threatening condition in which bacteria begin to multiply in the blood stream, by overwhelming the body's immune systems, leading to multisystem failure. Normal pregnancy does not result in septicaemia because the amniotic sac is sterile. However, when the foetus dies and is not evacuated promptly infection is common and may lead to septicaemia and DIC, or disseminated intravascular coagulation, in which blood begins to clot in small blood vessels all over the body leading to failure of vital organs and bleeding from multiple sites because of consumption of clotting factors. All this can be found in any medical textbook and should have been known by the doctor in charge, especially if he/she is working in a University, or teaching, hospital. We are told that an official inquiry is being set up and would like the following points to be specially clarified. 1. Why did Ms Halappanvar develop septicaemia? Did the doctor miss a spontaneous abortion with retained products or was there another focus of infection such as pyelonephritis, or infection of the kidneys, which is not uncommon in pregnancy? In any event the doctor is guilty of gross incompetence. 2. Do they practice voodoo medicine in Ireland? In modern medicine a doctor leaves his or her religion behind at the gate of the hospital. A doctor's loyalty is solely to the patient and to no one else. When we are registered as medical practitioners we have to swear the Hippocratic oath. Hippocrates was a Greek physician who lived 400 years before Jesus and had the wisdom to lay down his rules. So, the doctor is either totally incompetent or a religious fanatic.In either case he/she should be struck off and, possibly, charged with manslaughter. For us the facts are very simple.