Obstetrician's remarks 'outrageous', says Kenny

TAOISEACH ENDA Kenny has described as “outrageous” remarks by an obstetrician about shortages in midwifery services in the mid-west.

Dr Gerry Burke, a consultant obstetrician at the Mid-Western Regional Maternity Hospital in Limerick and chairman of the Labour Party in Limerick, had warned that mothers and their new babies could die because of the number of midwives due to retire by the end of February.

Fianna Fáil Limerick TD Willie O’Dea called on the Taoiseach to give an assurance that the HSE and Department of Health had a contingency plan to deal with the staff crisis in the hospital’s maternity services, where 47 of the hospital’s 200 midwives would leave through early retirement.

Dr Burke had said the HSE and the Department of Health had no plans to deal with the shortfall.

Mr Kenny said Dr Burke’s comments were outrageous and “beyond the norm for a medical person of his stature to equate the process of staff legitimately leaving the health service under the programme with an attack – in the context of paying back money to German banks – on babies and pregnant mothers”.

He told Mr O’Dea he “can take it that the HSE has a contingency plan”.

But “it is not possible to determine the outcomes until we know the numbers of those who intend to leave” as staff could decide to leave right up to the deadline.Once the numbers leaving were known, the HSE’s and department’s plans “will come into play”.

When Mr O’Dea said Dr Burke was chairman of the Labour Party in Limerick, he was ruled out of order for referring to the politics of someone outside the House.