Maternity services - Cheque book system must be reformed

ANY doubts about the two-tier quality of the Irish health service are swiftly dispelled by today’s analysis of the highly revealing Irish Examiner/Lansdowne Market Research survey of maternity services in the Republic.

As is patently clear from the results, low income mothers are 12 times more likely than their better-off counterparts to be discharged from hospital within 24 hours of giving birth.

Further defining the skewed nature of this country’s health service, the research puts a spotlight on a scenario whereby well-off mothers, who can afford to pay for private maternity care, receive more ultrasound scans during pregnancy, have more Caesarean sections and are subject to fewer emergency interventions during delivery.