Dr Cowley saved my baby’s life

LIFESAVERS?Dr Jerry Cowley and his daughter Dr Caroline Cowley Ó FaolΡin, with newborn baby Amaya Gallagher Floody, who they delivered in Mulranny on Friday night.

Dr Cowley saved my baby’s life


Mulranny ambuance base in spotlight once again after emergency delivery

Exclusive
Áine Ryan

SHE may be just three days old, but after an emergency delivery in a Mulranny GP’s surgery, Baby Amaya Gallagher is now at the centre of a campaign to highlight the lack of ambulance services in remote areas of west Mayo. Now back home in Achill with her doting parents, Elaine Gallagher and Trevor Floody, and nine-year-old brother Caoilean, the story of Baby Amaya’s dramatic birth could have been very different but for the intervention of Dr Jerry Cowley.
“Dr Cowley, his wife, Teresa, and their daughter, Caroline, saved my baby’s life and possibly mine,” Elaine Gallagher said yesterday. She told The Mayo News that she felt very lucky her baby wasn’t born on the side of the road, which could have had fatal consequences, since Amaya was not breathing when she was delivered.
“I was two days overdue and I got two bad contractions before we left Saula for Castlebar.  My sister was with us and as we drove through Mulranny we didn’t think we would make it, and she remembered that Dr Cowley has a surgery there. She ran up to the house, and within seconds his wife had a wheelchair for me.
“The baby was born at 7.20pm, 40 minutes after we arrived at the surgery, and five minutes after the ambulance arrived from Castlebar. The fact that she didn’t breathe immediately means it could have been tragic if she was born on the side of the road,” Ms Gallagher said last night.

‘Disgrace’
THE doting mum said both she and her partner were ‘still traumatised’ by the ordeal.
“The ambulance arrived just as the baby was born. It is just a disgrace that there isn’t one based in Mulranny all the time. It is so badly needed,” said Elaine Gallagher.
“I know my own case was serious and could have been much worse, but there are so many life-and-death situations. We are just so grateful to Jerry Cowley, his wife, Teresa, and their daughter, Caroline.”
Last Friday’s delivery by Dr Cowley and his daughter, Dr Caroline Cowley Ó FaolΡin, was the seventh such emergency delivery at the busy Mulranny practice.

Petition
UNSURPRISINGLY, the GP, who has been a longtime campaigner regarding rural ambulance services, has now launched a petition calling on Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Minister for State Michael Ring ‘to provide the finance necessary to employ the HSE personnel required to run the newly opened Mulranny HSE Ambulance Base’.
“Baby Amaya was delivered by myself and my daughter, Caroline, in the surgery as the snow began to fall outside. The ambulance that finally took mother and baby to hospital took over 40 minutes to arrive. It had left for the Mulranny base earlier that day but predictably was diverted elsewhere before it had even left Castlebar,” Dr Cowley said yesterday.   
“Baby Amaya is the seventh baby that my wife, Teresa, and I have delivered in Mulranny.  This time I also had the assistance of my daughter, Dr Caroline. Thank God mother and baby are okay, as are the other six babies we delivered over the years in my surgery. Mothers have so far to go to Castlebar that they just turn up at my door with only minutes to spare. It just goes to show the vast distances people have to travel from Achill and the surrounding areas which would be covered by the HSE Mulranny Ambulance base,” he said.
Dr Cowley said it was a case of ‘now you see the ambulance – now you don’t’, despite the fact that the ambulance base — recently opened just outside the village — ‘is rarely manned’ since  crews are diverted elsewhere before they even get as far as the Mulranny base.
He dubbed it an ‘ad-hoc service’ with no extra HSE ambulance staff allocated to run the base under the HSE Service plan.

Taoiseach
“IF this base is to save lives as intended then it needs to be manned around the clock to best serve the west Mayo area of Mulranny, Achill, Corraun, Tiernaur, Newport, Kilmeena, Ballycroy and Bangor. Otherwise it is a terrible waste of resources and just a cynical paper exercise,” Dr Cowley said.
He added: “Were complications to arise in these emergency deliveries then the outcome could have been different, as we are so far from Castlebar and an emergency ambulance.”
He told The Mayo News that was why he was ‘launching a special petition, which will be available to sign at local businesses and GP surgeries, calling on our local government representatives Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Minister of State Michael Ring to ensure this situation is rectified where their constituents are being placed in unnecessary danger’.


RECOVERING?Elaine Gallagher and Trevor Floody with their new baby, Amaya and son Caoilean (9) at their home in Saula, Achill.