The too small CUMH - Amateur planning

THE Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) was opened last year to great fanfare. Though there were teething problems the €75 million facility was described as state of the art.

Amazingly it is already too small to cope with the demands being placed on it. The centre of excellence facility was designed to cater for up to 7,000 births a year. That figure has been surpassed and 8,800 mothers are expected to give birth at the centre this year. Even more are anticipated next year.

Because of this pregnant women are being told that they cannot be guaranteed a bed and that they may have to give birth on a trolley in a hallway.

This puts tremendous pressure on frontline staff but it is difficult to understand how those who planned the facility could have got the figures so wrong.

Already there is a HSE report on the debacle but, unsurprisingly, the promised publication date has come and gone without sight if it.

This is the kind of ineptitude and amateur management that has made our health system such a failure.