CHILD HEALTH
'Hospital cuts threaten women's lives'
December 11, 2012
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The Master of Dublin's Rotunda Hospital has said it is only a matter of time before a lack of resources contributes directly to the death of a mother.
He was commenting after irishhealth.com revealed yesterday that three maternal deaths were recorded at the Rotunda in 2011 for the second year in row, and that there have been eight recorded maternal deaths there in the past three years.
Dr Sam Coulter Smith stressed that maternal deaths were still very rare, and there was no overriding factor in the number of maternal deaths recorded at the Rotunda in recent years. He said there were different causes and different factors in recent maternal deaths.
He told irishhealth.com that while stretched resources were an issue at the Rotunda at the moment, they did not directly contribute to the recent maternal deaths.
However, Dr Coulter Smith said resource issues and the hospital's workload were already posing a potential risk to the lives of mothers.
He said it might be only a matter of time before he had to write in a hospital annual clinical report that resource issues had led to an adverse outcome for a mother or child.
"The more emergencies you have at the same time and the more resources are stretched, the higher the risk to your patients."
Dr Coulter Smith said one of the issues he had highlighted relating to maternal death would be when the hospital was dealing with mothers from disadvantaged backgrounds or for whom English was not their first language, who would be in a higher risk category.
He said there may be problems with communication or educational level in these patients which can make their care more difficult.
Dr Coulter Smith said the Rotunda, due to its location in Dublin's inner city, would have a high proportion of patients from disadvantaged backgrounds or for whom English is not a first language.
He said one maternal death last year and one the year before fell into the above category. Communicating with some patients and making sure they accessed services was a challenge.
Dr Coulter Smith said ideally, the Rotunda would like to hire Polish liaison midwives to overcome communication and access problems.
Six maternal deaths were recorded at the three Dublin maternity hospitals last year, the highest figure in recent years.