HSE approves 22 additional midwife posts for struggling hospital

TWENTY-TWO additional midwife posts have been approved for a hospital in the north east, which the Health Service Executive (HSE) yesterday admitted is struggling to cope.

Maternity services at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth, are at “serious risk” due to critical staffing shortages, according to a report by a high-powered HSE task force. Patrick Kinder, chairman of the maternity services task force for the north east, expressed his concerns in a letter to the HSE’s national hospitals’ office last October.

Mr Kinder, whose comments were reported in a newspaper yesterday, said there was an “urgent need to review staffing and accommodation requirements” in the hospital’s maternity unit.