Health briefing

A round-up of today's other stories in brief

Home birth Bill is open to legal challenge, say groups

CAMPAIGNERS FOR better maternity services have warned that the Nurses and Midwives Bill currently going through the Oireachtas will end up in constitutional challenges.

The Bill, which contains controversial provisions for home births in the State, is due before the Seanad, having passed without amendment at committee stage last week. The Home Birth Association of Ireland, the Community Midwives Association and AIMS (Association for Improvements in Maternity Services) Ireland are among the groups lobbying for changes to the Bill.

AIMS Ireland spokeswoman Krysia Lynch said politicians were so distracted by the Budget that they may allow a Bill to go through which is open to legal challenges. The most controversial provision would make it compulsory for an expectant mother who wishes to have a home birth to go to hospital if her labour lasts longer than 24 hours. The midwife attending could face a fine or a prison sentence if they do not comply.

Draft guidelines seen by AIMS Ireland could also lead to circumstances where the Garda is called if a midwife is refused entry by a mother who is in labour.

Independent community midwife Bridget Sheeran said they did not want to risk prosecution if the Bill is passed into law.

“We cannot coerce women into hospital. If we are in a situation where as professionals we believe it would be safer to attend to the mother, we will do so. We are not prepared to withdraw care because that would compromise the mother and baby, and would be against our practice standards for midwives.”

HSE destroys €2m of swine flu vaccine

SOME €2 million worth of unused swine flu vaccines ordered last year by the HSE, which went out of date in September, has had to be destroyed, the HSE has said. It said 250,000 doses of Celvapan, ordered in advance of the swine flu pandemic, had been returned to manufacturer Baxter for destruction. Overall, €12.8 million of swine flu vaccines were ordered by the State for the H1N1 pandemic. The HSE still has 900,000 doses of the Pandemrix vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline, but this doesn’t go out of date until next year.

Expert says Ireland faces lifestyle disease crisis 

IRELAND IS facing a health crisis caused by lifestyle-related diseases, including obesity, heart disease, diabetes and tobacco-related illnesses, an international expert in physical therapy has said.

According to the president of the World Confederation for Physical Therapy, Dr Marilyn Moffat, all evidence suggest Ireland cannot consider itself a healthy population. “Alarm bells should be ringing based on projections that these lifestyle-related diseases will continue to rise over the next decade.”

Speaking at the annual conference of the Irish Society of Chartered Physiotherapists, Dr Moffat said while this was a grave problem, all of the diseases that were ringing alarm bells could be treated with appropriate lifestyle changes, such as exercise, education and good nutrition. She said: “Physiotherapists must lead the way by offering programmes of prevention of ill health through exercise and education in institutions and community-based services. Without increasing numbers of these programmes around Ireland, the costs at the end will create an even bigger cost problem than currently exists.”

The conference also heard that up to up to 60 per cent of graduate physiotherapists were moving abroad for work. The chief executive of the Irish Society of Chartered Physiotherapists, Ruaidhri O’Connor, said: “This is a real tragedy for these graduates and their families . . . But it is also a major loss to the economy, given the very real health and economic benefits that would accrue if we were to implement proper physiotherapy programmes across the private and public sector alone.”