A taskforce set up to oversee the delivery of better maternity services in the northeast continues to have serious concerns about staffing shortages at the maternity unit of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.
The taskforce chaired by Patrick Kinder, reiterated these concerns to senior personnel in the Health Service Executive (HSE) at a meeting last Thursday.
Its members told the HSE that services at the unit were neither safe nor sustainable without additional staffing being put in place and they expressed concern that six months on from a warning by letter to the HSE of the dangers posed by short staffing, little has happened to improve things.
In that letter last October Mr Kinder told the HSE's national hospitals office the taskforce had "major concerns" about the midwifery staffing position in the Drogheda hospital. The high birth rates and low staffing levels "show the extent of the serious risk which currently obtains in the maternity unit in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital", he wrote.
The amount of overtime that had to be worked due to staff shortages "is not sustainable for any length of time and it is critical to review the recruitment process to avoid unnecessary delays in filling posts", his letter added.
It also said the total number of mothers treated in the Drogheda hospital had risen from 2,031 in 1999 to a projected 3,900 in 2006. However, the number of midwives in the hospital only increased from 57 in 2000 to 66 last year.
Representatives of the taskforce were told at Thursday's meeting that a package of measures had been decided on to alleviate the situation. This included recruiting over 30 extra midwives in addition to three extra consultants and they were told it was now with Minister for Health Mary Harney awaiting her approval.
A spokesman for Ms Harney said last night she was supportive of staffing up the unit, but it was up to the HSE board to approve the package that had been drawn up.
When the full Kinder taskforce met on Saturday to review progress, members were informed of this latest information and welcomed it. A source close to the taskforce said it was hoped now that embargos on recruitment would not scupper approval of the plan for extra staffing in the Drogheda unit.
In a letter to the HSE in February the medical board of the hospital referred to midwife numbers being "far short of national norms".
Last night Louth Fine Gael TD Fergus O'Dowd, who has raised the issues of short staffing in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital a number of times, said he was still deeply concerned at the lack of investment in the hospital's maternity unit.