Modern maternity hospital aims to deliver five-star treatment

THE first thing you notice about Ireland’s newest maternity hospital is its shape, a sweeping expanse of limestone, steel and glass that adorns the southern approach to Cork University Hospital in the city’s Wilton area.

“It’s basically triangular with curved walls coming into a central point,” explains commissioning manager Nora Geary, whose job it has been to ensure that the facility opened on time and on budget.

For now though, she is happy to be an escort on a whistle-stop tour of this most modern of facilities. I suggest the scenic route, but in fact, it’s all scenic.

“Look across there,” she says, her arms enfolding the glazed link between the main patient areas on the upper floors. “You can see from Bandon to Cobh from here on a clear day.”

The view from the top is, indeed, spectacular as is the design, combining warmth with light and using natural wood, veneers and carpet throughout — very unhospital like and more in the nature of a five star hotel. Everything about the building, from the canopied entrance to the maple and walnut furniture, suggests zen like calm and architects Reddy O’Riordan Staehli have already picked up an award for the building from the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland. The facilities for both staff and patients are equally spectacular.

The project is enormous. CUMH amalgamates neonatal care services that used to be provided at the city’s two public maternity hospitals, Erinville and St Finbarr’s, as well as the private Bons Secours.

The €75 million project, funded by the Government under the National Development Plan, began in late 2002 and while €50m has been spent on the building itself, equipping it has cost a further €20m. Some 7,500 births are expected at the hospital every year, making it the third largest maternity hospital in the country. Women and babies from Cork and parts of Kerry, Limerick, Waterford and Tipperary will use the services.

The 14,000 sq m development, on six storeys over a 100-space car park, includes 140 obstetric inpatient beds, 50 neo-natal cots, 12 birthing suites, three operating theatres, an outpatients department, and a UCC Research Centre for Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Fibre-optic links connect the outpatient clinic, the ultrasound rooms and operating theatres to the UCC education facilities on the fifth floor and, if required, to medical consultants around the world.

The real challenge, though, is to turn all that technology into first-class patient care. Professor John Higgins, Chair of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology division, is optimistic and believes the CUMH could be a model for maternity services elsewhere.

“In terms of setting a benchmark for the entire health service there are three key areas in opening a new hospital: There is the infrastructure, there’s the equipment and there is the staff. I am completely confident that we are going to set a benchmark in all three.”

There will also be plenty of innovation. “We have volunteered to be the first hospital to provide 24-hour, in-house consultant on call. This has been Government policy for decades but it has never been done. We will be the first to do it.” Hospital theatres will also open “eight till late” and on Saturdays, another first.

Sitting services together is the way forward and twinning with CUH will allow that. “For instance, with the incidence of diabetes now on the increase, access to services like renal and cardiac is very important,” he says. “It’s a one-stop shop when you have services close together like this. You can do joint clinics, so for women with high risks, it is ideal.”

For most women pregnancy and childbirth will be a social event, not an illness, so the new maternity hospital is also geared to their needs.

“We want to be able to provide care in a home-like setting,” says a hospital spokesperson.

“Then there are other women who might need a higher level of surveillance but still have a normal pregnancy. Some women who have underlying medical problems may need quite specialised obstetric or medical care and, in this new hospital, we would hope to be able to provide all options safely and easily.”

There are also plans to develop community midwifery schemes to provide ante-natal and post natal care for women who live far away from the hospital.

The challenge is to make the service the hospital provides match the quality of the building and its facilities. As for the significance of its shape, opinion is divided among staff. I suggest it looks like a slice of Pizza but the professionals have other ideas. “It’s like a Toblerone on its side,” suggests a nurse. “No, it’s not,” argues a colleague. “The sides are curved. It’s not a bit like a Toblerone. “All agree, though, that the building’s feminine curves symbolise the circle of life.

What it looks like most of all is a circle of arms wrapped around and enfolding its central space. That is, indeed, unique: there aren’t too many hospitals anywhere shaped like a hug.