The head of a high-powered Health Service Executive task force has warned of "serious risk" to maternity services at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda due to critical staffing shortages.
Patrick Kinder, chairman of the maternity services task force for the northeast, has said there is an "urgent need to review staffing and accommodation requirements" in the maternity unit at the hospital, which he says has experienced a 90 per cent increase in births since 1999, but no equivalent increase in midwives.
In a letter sent to the HSE's national hospitals office on October 30th last, Mr Kinder said the task force 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 serous risk which currently obtains in the maternity unit in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital", he wrote.
The amount of overtime that has 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", according to the letter addressed to Dr Mary Hynes, assistant national director, quality, risk and customer care at the national hospitals office. It is understood that Mr Kinder followed up the October letter with an e-mail to the HSE two weeks ago in which he reinforced the task force's concerns.
The Irish Times reported last week that the medical board of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital also warned in a recent letter to the HSE of several patient safety issues including the fact that "midwife numbers are far short of national norms".
In his letter, which was obtained by Louth Fine Gael TD Fergus O'Dowd, Mr Kinder 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.
He said the huge number of overtime hours midwives were working as a result was not sustainable. Figures supplied to him by the hospital management showed that last September, 16 midwives worked 628 hours overtime.
A workload analysis prepared in 2002 at the request of the former North Eastern Health Board by consultants in England said there was a requirement for 85.5 midwives for 3,200 births. "These Birthrate Plus figures are calculated on a 1:37 midwife to mother ratio. The current ratio in Our Lady of Lourdes is 1:58," according to the letter.