Long term plans for new hospital at Dooradoyle

A CONSULTANT at Limerick’s Regional Maternity hospital, has warned that women and babies could die as a result of cutbacks which will deprive the hospital of almost a quarter of its midwives. Dr Gerry Burke, consultant obstetrician, and chairman of the Labour Party, Constituency of Limerick City, warned that paying for the “gambling losses” of banks and the “fiscal recklessness” of previous governments means “women and babies may pay for it with their lives”. And the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation claims that the level of cover is reaching a dangerously low point.
Dr Burke said that by the end of February, the maternity hospital in Limerick will have lost 47 midwives out of its complement of just over 200 in the HSE’s retirement scheme.  No plans to deal with the shortfall have been presented by the HSE or the Department of Health.
The maternity hospital provides care to more than 6,000 women and about 5,200 new-born infants in the mid-west every year.
The shortfall of midwifery staff will diminish the quality of maternity care these women and babies receive, Dr Burke warned.
“Having babies is the core business of human beings.  Therefore, the provision of safe maternity services is among the most fundamental duties of the government”.  
Staffing is not the only problem facing the hospital, the obstetrician added. “The maternity hospital itself, which is 50 years old, has been struggling with the large increase in births over the last five years.  
There are increasingly unconvincing and nebulous plans to relocate the hospital to a new building on the Dooradoyle site at some distant point in the future,“ commented Dr Burke. 
“There is an urgent need to remove both the Regional Hospital and the Regional Maternity Hospital from the control of the HSE, which has been very detrimental to the mid-west region, and place them under local democratic control.  Elected representatives, answerable to the local community, must take control again,” Dr Burke said.
Mary Fogarty of the Limerick INMO, told the Limerick Post that her organisation has “repeatedly asked the HSE for details of their contingency plan for cover after February but we’re still in the dark, Things can go wrong in maternity and to make sure they turn out right, there is a certain level of cover below which you should not fall. We are reaching that level and frontline services must be protected”.
In a statement, the HSE said that “contingency plans are being developed to cover any gaps that may arise in staffing as a result of midwives retiring at the end of February. There are long term plans for building a new maternity hospital on the campus of the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Dooradoyle. In the interim over €3 million has been spent upgrading facilities at the Ennis Road hospital”.