Campaigners outside a council of state meeting convened by President Michael Higgins before the Protection of Life During Pregnancy bill became law last month. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA
Doctors have said the privacy of a woman who was given the first abortion in an Irish hospital under new legislation was violated after her name appeared in a newspaper.
Doctors at the Holles Street National Maternity Hospital in Dublin described the leak as "outrageous".
The termination, which was legal under the Republic's new abortion law, is understood to have been carried out weeks ago.
Criticising the Irish Times, the clinical director of the hospital, Dr Peter Boylan, said: "It is absolutely unacceptable for a patient details to be splashed around the front page of the newspaper."
Boylan said he would try to find the source of the story.
"It is not fair on patients to do this. It is completely unethical," he said. "It's outrageous. If it is a doctor [who gave out the information] they could well end up in front of the Medical Council.
"To give the exact clinical details to a member of the press is absolutely unethical behaviour by any medical personnel. This is not the sort of behaviour you would expect from a serious professional."
The National Maternity Hospital is one of 25 hospitals in the republic authorised to carry out terminations under the Protection of Life During Pregnancy law.
It was performed under section 7, which deals with the risk of a woman dying from physical illness.
The law requires the hospital to provide the health minister with the Medical Council registration number of the doctor who carried out the procedure and the registration number of the doctor involved in certification. It must also state under which provision of the act the termination was carried out.
The health minister is required to publish a yearly report on terminations carried out under the terms of the act.
It is understood that the clause dealing with women who are suicidal in pregnancy was not considered by the medical team at the hospital.
Indian dentist Savita Halappanavar died in Galway University hospital last autumn, after being denied an emergency abortion.
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