New maternity hospital delayed by another year

Department of Health briefing documents reveal the promised new hospital will not be completed until 2019 - a year after it was promised.

The hospital is currently struggling to provide a service in an outdated building in Holles Street in the city centre and is due to be transferred to the campus of St Vincent's Hospital with a new purpose-built facility.

Former Health minister James Reilly said last year that it would open its doors to a new generation in 2018, but the briefing documents given to his successor Minister Leo Varadkar confirm it is delayed.

A spokesman for Holles St declined to comment yesterday.

The delay in yet another much-needed hospital building will come as a disappointment to master Dr Rhona Mahony who said she has to shoehorn modern facilities into an old building.

"When I do the rounds I am quite upset by the overcrowding but it has been part of life now for several years," she said at the launch of the plan.

She warned in the hospital's annual report that doctors and midwives at the hospital are working in a climate of fear because of spiralling legal claims.

Frustration

"Staff are used to exhaustion, frustration and stress but the fear is a dangerous emotion. It paralyses and diminishes."

It recently emerged that earlier this year the hospital had to discharge up to 24 mothers each morning because of the pressures on space.

The building of a maternity hospital on the site of St Vincent's is in keeping with recommendations that maternity services should be co-located along side an adult acute hospital.

This would allow for the sharing of expertise and a better experience for patients.

Around €150m has been promised from the Exchequer to build the new hospital. It will take around 30 months to build and the fitting out and transfer will last for another year-and-a-half.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Galway University Hospital confirmed yesterday that its maternity unit has not increased its number of midwives on the staff since the death of Savita Halappanavar two years ago. Staffing was not blamed as a contributory cause of her death in inquiries although it was raised by unions.

The spokesman said the numbers of midwives were correct for the size of the unit in St Monica's ward, a 15-bed ward.

There are 18 posts in addition to five undergraduate nurses when training is taking place, he added.

It now has a Director of Midwifery who is responsible for five maternity units in the region to share expertise.