Maternity unit may not be built if women move out

A MATERNITY unit may not be built at Tralee General Hospital unless almost a third of Kerry women stop going to Cork and Limerick to have their babies, it was claimed yesterday.

Last year, 391 women from Kerry gave birth in Cork hospitals and 31 in Limerick, while there were over 1,450 births in Tralee.

Dr Mary McCaffrey, a consultant obstetrician/gynaecologist at Tralee General Hospital, told a public meeting that the hospital had one of the best maternity services in the south. She said the expansion of maternity services was pivotal to attracting specialist clinics, adding that the experience in Bantry, since the maternity unit closed there, was that visiting consultants simply did not come to the hospital.