Savita`s husband likely to pursue her case in European courts

London: The husband of an Indian dentist, who lost her life after being denied an abortion in Ireland, has indicated that he would consider further action in the case through the courts in Europe after a jury at her inquest ruled that she died of medical misadventure.

An 11-member yesterday unanimously ruled that 31-year-old Savita Halappanavar died of "medical misadventure". Soon after the verdict, he husband Praveen Halappanavar said he is still considering further action through the courts in Europe, as he believes his wife`s right to life was breached, The Irish Times reported. "I haven`t got my answers yet why Savita died. I will get to the bottom of the truth," he said. "Medicine is all about preventing the natural history of the disease and improving the patient`s life and health, and look what they did. She was just left there to die. We were always kept in the dark," he said. "If Savita would have known her life was at risk she would have jumped off the bed, straight to a different hospital. But we were never told." Savita was 17 weeks pregnant when admitted to University Hospital Galway on October 21 last year. She died a week later from blood poisoning after doctors refused to terminate her pregnancy, telling her that the foetal heartbeat was still present and "this is a Catholic country". A spokesman of the University hospital Galway acknowledged there were lapses in the standards of care provided to Savita. Tony Canavan, chief operating officer of Galway Roscommon Hospital Group, promised the deficiencies identified at the inquest would be recified by the hospital and all recommendations would be taken on board. Some of the recommendations had already been acted on, he said. The Medical Council, whose guidelines featured prominently at the inquest, said it would reconsider these rules after the Government changed the legal position. Speaking in Cork after the verdict, Ireland`s Minister for Health James Reilly said lessons learned from the inquest would feed into new guidelines for medical care. The Minister said he would have no issue apologising to Halappanavar but wanted to read the inquest report first. Dr Reilly said the loss of Savita had been desperately hard on her husband Praveen and his family and the family of late Savita and he did not want to add to this in any way by making any kind of general comment at this time. PTI