Failure to deliver leaves taxpayer holding the baby

LIKE the expectant mother who fails to meet her due-date, the country’s newest maternity hospital failed to deliver on time.

Despite months of hard labour to ensure Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) opened on Saturday, no amount of inducing could bring reluctant midwives on board for the scheduled opening.

Operation Bambino, which should have seen the State’s largest ever neo-natal transfer kick off at 9am, never materialised. Instead, mums-to-be were advised to travel to existing maternity services at the Erinville, St Finbarr’s or the Bon Secours hospitals as frantic negotiations continued in an effort to bridge the gulf between the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO).

Right up to noon on Saturday, scheduled as the moment when the three existing maternity hospitals would merge under the expensive roof of CUMH, no-one knew if it would happen.

Outside the spanking-new €75 million facility, five 16-seater mini-buses, four taxis, a couple of ambulances and motorcycle cops awaited the signal from early morning to set the transfer plan in motion.

Baby-seats lined the pavement, ready for fitting.

Inside, administration staff busily arranged single-stem sunshine-yellow gerber daisies at the bedside lockers of each of the 100 mothers who should have arrived. A little card attached to each arrangement read: “The staff of Cork University Maternity Hospital welcomes you on this special day, March 24, 2007.”

Bouquets were ready for presentation to the mums who gave birth to what should have been the last babies born at the old hospitals. An additional bouquet was at hand for the first mum to give birth in CUMH. Orchids stood at each nursing station, adding an additional touch of elegance to a tasteful building.

As talks between the HSE and the INO continued behind closed doors, the ground floor of the hospital was a hive of activity.

Last-minute light bulb installation took place at the coffee station, sadly the only section of the hospital doing a roaring trade. Floors were given a final polish, a few workmen with drills seemed to be checking a snag list. A banner right inside the entrance read “Cork University Maternity Hospital welcomes you”.

At 8.30am, the three older maternity hospitals should each have had lit a candle as a symbol of what their service had meant over the passage of time.

At another service in CUMH that evening, the trinity would blend into one as a single candle was lit in the new hospital. It never happened.

Jim Griffin, chief security officer, up most of the previous night, had been doing the rounds since 6am. His staff were responsible for keeping the car parks in the Erinville and St Finbarr’s free of cars for the day to facilitate the transfer plan.

Niall Cremen, the commuter plan manager sat, by his side.

Both had been involved in planning the big day from the offset. By noon, with no word from the talks, they were beginning to wilt. “We’re disappointed to say the least. This was high-level, everything was ready to run at 8am. Now it’s starting to go flat,” Jim said.

With no breakthrough in the talks, the HSE was forced to push the opening time back from 9am to 4pm.

There was a momentary flurry of excitement when a pregnant women was spotted walking across the swish new entrance bridge, but no joy. She was visiting her husband, a consultant anaesthetist.

Then, out of the blue, the HSE announced that at last, a child was arriving, prompting a collective media jump. The commotion was short-lived. It was not a new baby. It was a five-year-old, Isobel Ichu, the last child transferred from the now defunct St Finbarr’s paediatric unit to the children’s ward on the main campus of CUH.

There was a sense that the HSE was clutching at straws.

Into the afternoon, a medic arrived at the hospital. “Any news?” he asked. “One-nil to Ireland,” was the answer, indicating the opening of the hospital had taken a back seat.

General manager of Cork University Hospital Group Tony McNamara looked spent.

“How do I feel? Where do I start? Extremely disappointed to say the least,” he said.

Tom Finn, assistant director of the HSE’s National Hospitals Office, looked perplexed.

“I don’t understand the INO’s logic. How can they say the hospital will be understaffed? It is the most highly resourced, highly funded, technologically advanced maternity hospital in the country.

“Its technology and staffing levels are higher than anything I have seen in the NHS or in the US and I have worked in both.”

Patsy Doyle, the INO representative, was keeping her counsel. Union members had already rejected her recommendation that they accept a HSE proposal and co-operate with the move. The pressure was on.

By 4pm, the gloves were off. Another transfer deadline had come and gone and the pussyfooting was over. HSE chief Professor Brendan Drumm let fly, laying the blame for the non- opening firmly at the midwives’ feet. It boiled down to their demands for relocation money and nothing more, he said.

Quick as a flash, the INO retaliated, describing Professor Drumm’s comments as “insulting” and “ill-informed”.

A furious INO general secretary Liam Doran said that, at all times, their concern was for safe staffing levels and not financial gain.

With no end to the argument in sight, a decision was taken at 6pm to stand down the transfer plan. Mr McNamara made the statement in the hospital lobby, to a dejected administration staff. Next Saturday has been announced as the new opening date. Talks to resolve the row continue.

In the meantime, the legacy from last Saturday is an expensive one. The taxpayer will pick up the tab for a failed transfer plan likely to have cost well in excess of €1m; mothers and babies cannot avail of a state-of-the -art hospital and the State is burdened with another idle health facility — the most expensive one to date.