It is reprehensible that nurses and midwifes are treated so badly in Ireland

I am motivated to write to your newspaper after seeing the fight nurses and midwives are currently undertaking in their efforts to be properly paid and have manageable working conditions as they take care of the women in their hospitals.

I recently spent some weeks in the Cork University Maternity Hospital and was amazed at the workload the midwives are dealing with on a daily basis and with their unfailing commitment to their patients’ welfare and well-being.

It became clear to me during my stay that the spirit of vocation in their work is being taken advantage of by government economic policies which are entirely reprehensible.

We are talking here of birthing women, whose children are the fruit of Ireland in years to come being born into the world, in the skilled hands of committed midwives who work under the sort of challenging conditions no politician would put up with.

Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) midwives and those in other hospitals around the country deserve to be paid adequately and to have sufficient resources and manageable working conditions commensurable with best practice for the birthing women in their care.

Such material and financial resources are urgently needed if we are to sustain the highest levels of care in our maternity hospitals and without damaging the professionalism of midwives such as was shown to me in Cork.

I say shame on the government and its penny-pinching financial policies regarding the valuable and essential work of these midwives.

It is time to honour them with what is needed to preserve the best of midwifery in Ireland.

Rachel Gingell

North Wing

The Glebe

Durrus

Bantry

Co Cork