Women take fight for home births to High Court

WOMEN refused a home birth service are going to the Supreme Court next week to fight a High Court decision which exempts health boards from funding the service.

Section 62 of the 1970 Health Act requires health boards to provide "medical, surgical, and midwifery services without charge to all expectant mothers", but last year the High Court ruled that this did not oblige health boards to provide home birth services.

However, four women refused a home birth service are to challenge this finding next Tuesday.

Co-ordinator of the National Home Births Association (NHBA), Pádraicín Ní Mhurchú, said she believed women who gave birth at home had the same rights to maternity services as women who decided to have babies in hospital. She said the association was fully behind the women's decision to go to court, and that the NHBA was planning a legal challenge of its own.

The association is seeking a judicial review of the decision, by a number of leading maternity hospitals, to refuse blood tests and ultrasound scans to women who have opted for an independent midwife service.

The hospitals cite vicarious liability as their reason for refusal a hospital which treats a woman at some stage during her pregnancy may be held responsible for any mishap, even though the woman may be back in the care of her midwife, and no longer in the care of the hospital.

The NHBA disputes this claim by the hospitals' liability argument, saying that it is part on an ongoing turf war to retain control of the birthing process. Ní Mhurchú said the turf war was making it increasingly difficult to practise as an independent midwife.

"Some women are forced to lie about using independent midwives because they know either the hospitals will refuse them blood tests and scans, or their GP will be reluctant to take blood tests for them," she said.

The National Birth Alliance, which supports women's right of choice in the birthing process, is keeping a close eye on next week's Supreme Court challenge, said spokesperson Marie O'Connor.

"If these four women succeed in getting the High Court ruling overturned, it will have widespread implications. There are another 11 women with similar cases waiting in the wings. If the women win next week, then those other women will automatically win as well and the health boards will have to fund a home birth service," she said.