Hospital dispute: questions that were not asked

I AM appalled at the poor quality of your coverage of the debacle at the new Cork University Maternity Hospital.

Not once have I seen an attempt to get to the bottom of the dispute in a balanced fashion and there hasn’t been a semblance of investigative journalism on your part.

You have facilitated the HSE’s aggressive tactics from day one. Last Saturday you published a front page picture of baby seats outside the hospital, but you didn’t ask why they were put there. It was a cynical ploy by the HSE to intimidate the midwives.

Have you investigated the real reasons why midwives do not want to transfer to the new hospital?

Did you really expect that babies were going to be transferred to a unit where nurses were not properly trained to use the equipment and where safety procedures were not gone through thoroughly with the new staff?

Did you ask how many emergency operating theatres were in place?

No. You relied on administrators who used you for their own purposes.

If that farce had been pushed through last Saturday, one thing was certain — the safety of mothers and babies would have been put at risk.

And what would be the result if a baby died? An inquiry concluding that ‘system failures’ were the cause. There would be reviews and a consultants’ report would be commissioned.

There would be much hand-wringing and the administrators would hide behind their desks.

Who would have to deal with a traumatised mother and father? Whose registration would be on the line?

You would write your human interest piece through an interview with the traumatised family. And we would all shake our heads at such a sad story.

The safety of mother and baby is the only priority. You should remember that.

Leonard O’Driscoll

Church Road

Aghada

Midleton

Co Cork