Dr. Mary McCaffrey:

I wish to address the issue of the special circumstances and answer Deputy Mitchell O'Connor. My understanding of what the Medical Council stated this morning is that one does not need special procedures or a second opinion or signatory to carry out an emergency procedure. As Dr. Mahony stated, if someone is bleeding in front of one and her life is at risk, one gets on with it. Smaller hospitals are very different because we do not have a second on-call obstetrician. At this point in time, we do not even have a formalised process in place to allow me telephone a particular master to obtain a second opinion. People want the legislation to be couched and worded in such a way that we will be protected and we will not end up in prison because we did something as a result of which someone decides we should be reported to the Medical Council. This is a huge fear among people because obstetrics is an extremely emotive profession.

With regard to the ethos of hospitals, we practice with clinical guidelines from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in London, the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and the HSE. People practice evidence-based medicine in the best interests of patients.