Overcrowding putting newborn lives at risk, Master of Rotunda says

Overcrowding at the country's busiest and oldest maternity is putting the lives of newborn babies at risk.

That is the warning from the Master of the Rotunda in Dublin.

In the hospital's neo-natal unit, incubators are spaced around a half a metre apart.

Professor Fergal Malone says the risk of the spread of infection can have deadly consequences.

"We saw it earlier this year," Professor Malone said.

"We had, unfortunately, an outbreak of a bug called Klebsiella in our intensive care unit and unfortunately one baby died, two babies developed meningitis and the investigation that we conducted afterwards suggested that one of the key causal factors into that was overcrowding, the fact that incubators are too close together."