A friend of Savita Halappanavar’s family has demanded an independent public inquiry into her death after doctors in an Ireland hospital refused to abort her foetus on grounds that ‘this is a Catholic country’. ‘The death of Savita Halappanavar must be the subject of an independent public inquiry’ said C.V.R. Prasad a surgeon who is a close friend of 31-year-old Savita and her husband Praveen. Prasad an orthopaedic surgeon at the Merlin Park Hospital in Galway said such an inquiry must be taken out of the hands of the Health Service Executive (HSE) or University Hospital Galway Irish Times reported