Saolta University Healthcare Group has declined to give a commitment to publish an internal review into incidents of head injuries suffered by newborn babies at the Maternity Unit of University Hospital Galway.

Saolta has also again declined to say how many babies suffered a subgaleal haemorrhage related to instrumental vaginal delivery at UHG last year.

It said there was a “small number of cases” reported to the Saolta Group Women’s and Children’s Serious Incident Management Team, and the number was “within published accepted limits”.

At a HSE West Regional Health Forum meeting last week, Tony Canavan, CEO of Saolta (pictured), was asked three times by Galway County Councillor Evelyn Parsons (Ind) whether the review into the cases would be published but he did not say it would.

Instead, Mr Canavan said he would update members of the HSE West Regional Health Forum at their next meeting.

He said the priority now was to communicate with families involved and to “appraise them of the findings of the report”, following a review carried out by National Women’s and Infant’s Health Programme (NWIHP).

Mr Canavan, under questioning from Cllr Parsons, also declined to say how many babies were involved.

Subgaleal haemorrhage is a known complication of instrumental vaginal delivery, and particularly vacuum-assisted delivery.

He said all cases were reported and logged on the National Incident Management Systems (NIMS), and Saolta had guidelines, “to provide advice to staff regarding the detection and management of potential subgaleal haemorrhage in the newborn”.

Mr Canavan said all babies involved in the review had left UHG “healthy”, and Saolta would prioritise communication with the families.

Cllr Parsons said the response was “completely inadequate”, and there were “huge concerns triggered” by the story which hit national headlines.

She said the NWIHP review was the HSE looking at itself, and what was needed was a fully independent review so that confidence could be restored.

She said it was right to contact the families first but other people, including expectant parents, had concerns about the service.

She said that it was “too soon” to assess whether the babies’ development had been impacted by the head injuries.

Cllr Parsons said the review needed to be made public, because in a vacuum of information “concerns multiply”.