Death of mother-of-three Orlaith Quinn, who died by suicide two days after giving birth, ‘could have been avoided’

Ms Quinn died in the early hours of October 11, 2018 at the Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital in Belfast.

Hours before her death, she confessed to her family and hospital staff that she had attempted suicide less than a week before her daughter Meabh was born.

Professor Eleni Palazidou, a retired consultant psychiatrist, has issued a number of scathing criticisms of the care given to Ms Quinn in the hours leading up to her suicide.

Among the areas she criticized was the standard of the mental health assessment, which was conducted after her husband described her as “manic” and “obsessed”.

Prof Palazidou said the team conducting the investigation should have spoken privately to Ms Quinn’s husband to get a better understanding of her mental state, as well as to staff with whom she had spoken about the earlier attempts on her life.

She said that Dr. Bob Boggs – the psychiatrist who examined Ms Quinn – was unable to definitively rule out postpartum psychosis, his patient should have been placed in individual care by a psychiatric nurse.

On the fifth day of the inquest into Ms Quinn’s death, the court heard two experts appointed to examine the care she had received at the hospital.

They were asked to answer a series of questions that ensued.

Prof Palazidou was asked for her opinion on the “prospects of avoiding” Ms Quinn’s death, “having weighed up the probabilities if the measures suggested by the experts had been followed”.

The court was told her opinion was “after weighing the probabilities, the death could have been avoided”.

Prof Palazidou also said that “the risk of suicide was assessed very poorly” by the psychiatric liaison assessment team.

The experts were also asked about the decision to move Ms Quinn to a single room after the assessment.

The court was told that both agreed that “although an adjoining room provided a quieter environment, this was unsafe as it did not permit continuous observation by nursing staff and provided an easier escape route from the ward”.

The inquiry was also told that Ms Quinn’s family and the midwifery staff who care for her “should be made aware” that she may be suffering from postpartum psychosis, as well as “the potential risks associated with such a diagnosis “.

They also said that they had Dr. Boggs disagreed that the fact Ms Quinn appeared calm, able to joke and showed empathy for her husband made it unlikely she had developed postpartum psychosis.

Instead, they said they believed she was trying to hide her true feelings.

Ms. Quinn gave birth to their only daughter by planned cesarean section on the morning of October 9, 2018.

Ms Quinn’s husband, Ciaran, said the following day his wife’s behavior suddenly changed when she revealed she had tried to kill herself three times five days earlier and lost consciousness during the last attempt.

Mr Quinn described his then-wife as “manic, uncontrollable, loud, irrational in speaking, unwilling to listen to reason, angry, upset and physically shaking”.

The inquest was told Ms Quinn said she believed she caused brain damage to her daughter during pregnancy and she was disabled and would therefore need a wheelchair.

She also said she ruined her family, the police were coming to arrest her and she was going to jail for the damage she caused, the court heard.

At the end of the investigation, Dr. Boggs said he believes Ms Quinn suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder, a common mental illness in which a person has compulsive thoughts and behaviors.

However, he could not rule out a postpartum psychosis.

Despite this, he deemed her “not active or acutely suicidal at this time”.

As a result, he did not believe she required individual monitoring or transfer to a psychiatric ward, instead recommending a “watchful wait” approach and a review of Ms Quinn the next day.

However, Ms Quinn left the ward that night and took her own life in a hospital corridor.

The investigation continues.