If the mother who lost her baby last week had been admitted to her local hospital to give birth, her baby would have had "a fighting chance" of survival, the sole obstetrician at Monaghan General Hospital has said.
Mr Alphonsus Kennedy, who has not been allowed to practise at Monaghan Hospital since maternity services were "temporarily" withdrawn by the North Eastern Health Board in March 2001, yesterday renewed his call for the restoration of maternity services there.
Speaking on the Today With Pat Kenny programme, he said that had there been a full maternity services when Ms Denise Livingtone presented at the hospital in the early hours of last Wednesday morning she would have been admitted and suitably assessed. She would have been enabled to give birth in Monaghan before being transferred with her baby in a suitably equipped ambulaHowever, Prof John Bonner, former chairman of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists told The Irish Times last night there would not be a consultant-led maternity unit at Monaghan Hospital again.
What was envisaged, he said, was the establishment of a midwife-led unit catering for women on their second or subsequent pregnancy. Units are to be established in Drogheda and Cavan "some time in the first 3-4 months of next year". These would be replicated in Monaghan, Dundalk and Navan.
