Staff shortages and births boom hit care of ill babies

A COMBINATION of staffing shortages and booming birth rates has reduced the ability of the country’s third-largest maternity hospital to provide one-to-one nursing care to seriously ill babies.

With 35 fewer midwives than recommended and a record 9,000 births expected this year, the clinical director of Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) said it can no longer guarantee a dedicated midwife for each baby in intensive care or one midwife for every two babies in special care.

In addition, Professor Richard Greene, consultant obstetrician/gynaecologist, said patients have occasionally had to be transferred to Dublin hospitals when it could not accommodate any more newborns in the neonatal unit, where just 37 out of 50 cots are in use since the hospital opened more than two years ago.