The National Maternity Hospital is to set a limit on the number of babies it is prepared to deliver during the summer months. Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports
The Master of Dublin's Holles Street Hospital, Dr Declan Keane, says once its summer "cap" has been reached, women will be told the hospital is "booked out".
The cap will be set at 700 deliveries a month and will initially be enforced in the months of June, July, August and September.
Dr Keane said the move was in the interests of patient safety as the hospital's infrastructure did not allow for more deliveries.
In a letter to GPs, he wrote that obstetric activity levels at the hospital peak in the summer months, a time when many staff are on holiday.
However, hospital infrastructure had a much more important bearing on the decision than staff holidays, he said last night. "From a safety perspective, we found we were having to draw a line in the sand. There comes a point where you can't allow any more women to be delivering their babies in corridors and alcoves," he said.
Earlier this month the hospital put in place a central booking office for obstetric patients. Expectant women must now call this office during business hours if they wish to book to delivery at Holles Street. If there is a place available, the patient will be given a booking reference number.
"When the quota has been reached for the capped months, the patient will be informed that the hospital is booked out, regardless of previous history," the letter to family doctors said.
"Unbooked emergency obstetric patients who present to the hospital will be seen; however this does not guarantee a booking," it added.
Dr Keane said no woman would be turned away in an emergency. However, not all women would be able to attend their first-choice hospital. He said the Rotunda Hospital had the same budget as the National Maternity Hospital but delivered 2,000 fewer babies a year.
Reacting last night to the letter, Labour's health spokeswoman Ms Liz McManus said: "In effect we are going to see an impossibility - waiting lists for the delivery of babies."