‘No danger’ to MGH Maternity Unit – Taoiseach

‘No danger’ to MGH Maternity Unit – Taoiseach


Kenny gives unequivocal assurance unit will not close


Edwin McGreal

The closure of the Maternity Unit at Mayo General Hospital is one of six options presented in a confidential draft review of maternity units. However, speaking to The Mayo News last Friday, An Taoiseach Enda Kenny was keen to unequivocally refute speculation that the report ‘recommended’ the unit’s closure. “There is no danger to maternity services in Mayo General Hospital,” he said.
Speaking to The Mayo News at Davitt House, Castlebar, at the official opening of the Intreo Centre, he poured scorn on reports that the hospital’s maternity unit was in trouble.  
“I’m appalled at the reaction for political purposes that has been put out here. It is very necessary following the unfortunate and tragic death of Savita Halappanavar that there a be a review carried out on the standards of maternity facilities throughout the country. This is very important for young women, for expectant mothers and for mothers, and for the staff who provide those services. In order to carry out a review of the quality of services throughout the country, you have to put in place a structure. That’s what’s involved in the group situation with hospitals all around the country now.
“Let me confirm to you that there is no danger to the maternity services in Mayo General Hospital. I’m clear on that. The Minister [for Health] has made that clear, and those who have gone about with deliberate speculation for political opportunism … there is no case for them to be making these kind of comments.
“Mayo General Hospital will be well able to meet the standards of integrity and quality care that are very necessary and that are at the heart of the Government’s proposals for healthcare services in the country, that the patient and the person receiving the service is the most important person of all,” he said.
However, speaking on Thursday night at the monthly meeting of Castlebar Town Council, Cllr Michael Kilcoyne, who first raised the issue in local media last week, said political assurances were of no use.
“The people of Roscommon have a letter saying the A&E services there will continue and that’s not worth anything to them,” he said.
“The key to any report is the terms of reference. We don’t know what they are. I would propose that the Minister (of Health Dr James Reilly) publish the terms of reference to include a clause that the maternity ward at Mayo General will continue to exist. If we wait until the final report, it will be adopted. It’d be remiss to wait until then,” he said.
His motion was passed. However, the four Fine Gael councillors on Castlebar Town Council insisted that the maternity unit would not close.

The draft report
A copy of the confidential draft report, viewed by The Mayo News yesterday (Monday), outlines six options. The closure of the maternity unit is one of them, while two of the other options would see a significant reduction in services.
Option 4 in the report sees maternity services reduced to a hub at University Hospital Galway (UHG) and one midwife-led obstetrics unit at Letterkenny General Hospital, which would lead to the closure of maternity facilities at Mayo General Hospital in Castlebar.
Other options involve retaining maternity services in Mayo General Hospital in various forms, some of which involve substantial cuts to the current services.
Option 1 retains the status quo, which in Mayo General’s case would mean keeping it as a consultant-led maternity unit with neonatology facility. Option 2 would see Mayo General Hospital, with Sligo and Letterkenny, operate as one of three satellite maternity units to UHG – essentially a retention of the status quo at Mayo General.
Option 3 entails keeping either Mayo or Sligo as a satellite unit, together with Letterkenny, to UHG.
Option 5 would see a greatly reduced service at Mayo General, which would become one of four standalone midwifery-led units. The draft states that the maximum number of births per year in each midwifery-led unit would be 75-100 per site. With 1,699 births at Mayo General Hospital last year, this configuration would mean over 90 percent of these deliveries would have to transfer to the main hub at UHG. The report does state that this option would put significant pressure on UHG.
Option 6, the final main option, would see two main hubs, at UHG and Sligo, with Mayo General Hospital a standalone midwifery unit with a similar cut in capacity at Mayo General as in Option 5.
A seventh ‘partial’ option mentioned in the report considers the suitability of UHG as the main hub in the West/North West Hospital Group (WNWHG).
The report, entitled ‘High Level Review of Maternity Services in the West Northwest Hospital Group’, was conducted by The Health Partnership, a Dublin-based healthcare consultancy group.
The executive summary of the report said that ‘most sites’ in the WNWHG fall below the recommended number of 2,500 births per year to ‘maintain a cost-effective and sustainable service from a resource perspective’.
The report cites the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists stipulation that the ratio should be one obstetrician to 350 births. Mayo General Hospital is the only hospital which conforms to this, with the ratio at one obstetrician to 340 births.
The report states that Mayo General Hospital, along with Portiuncula in Ballinasloe, Sligo and Letterkenny, is currently capable of dealing with ‘low- to medium-risk pregnancy and labour’, with only UHG clinically capable of ‘complex and high-risk pregnancies and labour’.