HSE won’t extend maternity hospital access to fully immunised partners

Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy asked why the vaccination rollout has made no apparent difference to the lack of access women in maternity units have to their partners. Picture: Gareth Chaney

Fully vaccinated partners of expectant mothers will not be given additional access to maternity hospitals, the HSE has confirmed.

Calls have been repeatedly made to end the ad hoc system of restrictions imposed on the partners of pregnant people attending the country's 19 maternity units since the outbreak of the pandemic.

However, the HSE has now ruled out extending visiting hours or further access for fully vaccinated fathers and birth partners.

Access is at the discretion of each unit

While the HSE has issued guidelines to maternity hospitals around allowing birth partners access — during labour, at the 20-week scan, and after birth — the implementation of these recommendations is at the discretion of each induvial hospital manager.

Mary-Jo Biggs, the general manager of the National Women and Infants Health Programme, confirmed that the guidance is not binding.

"If these guidance protocols cannot be met, the hospital should maintain and update their risk register and review them regularly," she said. 

"Where there are site-specific restrictions, these should be communicated to patients. As these guidelines are to be reviewed for implementation at local level, they therefore cannot be binding," she said.

TD asks why vaccines make no difference

Ms Biggs was responding to Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy who asked if restrictions could be eased, given the growing number of people who are now fully vaccinated.

"There currently is no plan to introduce provisions for fully vaccinated partners to attend for extended periods," Ms Biggs said.

Reacting, Ms Murphy asked: "At what point to reverse this if we don't reverse it when people have been vaccinated? It's difficult to see how you get back to where we were prior to the pandemic."

'Frustration and hurt'

She said the birth of a child is a unique occurrence and may only happen once or twice in a person's life and so there is a "great deal of frustration and hurt" in relation to the continuing restrictions.

"Nobody wants anybody to be put at risk but the vaccine is certainly one of the biggest parts of our armoury in dealing with Covid," she said.

The HSE has said it is to survey hospitals and maternity units on the level of restrictions in place this week.