A Monaghan town couple whose baby was born in an ambulance on Christmas Eve on the way to Cavan hospital have expressed anger at the lack of maternity services in the area.
The child was born in the ambulance at 6.05 p.m. en route to Cavan General Hospital.
The child's father, who did not wish to be named, said: "While we are delighted our baby girl is in great health, we are angry that, like a lot of other Monaghan people, we believed there would be a midwife in the ambulance but there was not."
The father stressed he had no problems with the ambulance personnel on duty, "who were great, but what if there had been any complications, where would we have been at six o'clock on a bitterly cold dark winter's evening on the side of the road near Lough Rockcorry?" Lough Rockcorry is 10 miles from Monaghan, a quarter of the distance to Cavan General Hospital. The ambulance left Monaghan town at 5.40 p.m. and had stopped twice before the baby was born on the third occasion.
A "Doctor on Call" service that had been promised to the couple by the ambulance crew did arrive, but after the baby had been born.
This is the latest in a long line of roadside births in the Monaghan area since the maternity unit closed at Monaghan General Hospital over two years ago. Baby Brona Livingstone died in December 2002 shortly after she had been admitted to Cavan General Hospital after complications during her birth in an ambulance on the way to Cavan from Emyvale, Co Monaghan.
A spokesman for the Monaghan Hospital Community Alliance said: "This is yet another example of broken promises made to the people of Monaghan by the Department of Health and the North Eastern Health Board.
"While the ambulance crews do their best in difficult situations, they are not trained midwives and this young woman and her baby must have been terrified by this traumatic incident on a Christmas Eve," the spokesman said.
Mother and baby are now back home in Monaghan and both are doing well. The North Eastern Health Board did not want to comment on the incident last night.