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A consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist has said the national maternity hospital should move to the collocated site with St Vincent’s hospital, so women can be provided "with the service they deserve", calling the current facilities "not fit for purpose".
Speaking on RTÉ radio’s News at One, Dr Zara Fonseca Kelly said the people most inconvenienced by the poor infrastructure at Holles Street hospital and the delay in moving to a new hospital were the women of Ireland.
Dr Kelly said that as a clinician who practiced at both Holles Street and St Vincent’s hospitals, she had not faced any barriers to performing procedures. A lot of the procedures being debated were already being provided at both hospitals, she said.
Terminations were being provided at St Vincent’s as required, but most were performed at Holles Street.
Religious ethos was out of the hospital with regard to the way clinicians practiced, she said. “It’s not coming back.”
Everyone had to accept that Ireland had changed and that clinicians could practice independently and that nothing was going to change that, she stated, adding: "The new hospital won’t have any religious ethos."
The best way to provide the best care for all the services allowed by the law, is to build this hospital.
State ownership of the site of the new maternity hospital was a separate and more complex issue, Dr Kelly said, but in the meantime the women of Ireland needed a new hospital.
“The best way to provide the best care for all the services allowed by the law, is to build this hospital.”
It was important for the hospital board to reach an agreement with politicians on the issue of land ownership, she added.
“The women of Ireland need a new hospital, what we have now is not fit for purpose. We need a hospital that will provide an integrated service, the best way to ensure that the hospital will provide all required services is for it to be moved as soon as possible.”
