John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry about that.

Let me point to a little bit of evidence to which, I am glad, my friend and colleague, Dr. Boylan, has already alluded. The figures are that Ireland has 2.4 obstetricians per hundred thousand members of the population while the figure for the second lowest-rated country in Europe, the Netherlands, is four, which is twice as high. The Netherlands has a birth rate of approximately two thirds that in Ireland. Our proportion of obstetricians to members of the population is one third the European average, and we have one of the highest birth rates in Europe. None of the hospitals in our network can provide comprehensive care to a woman who becomes seriously ill in pregnancy. Most of our maternity care is being given in small units or specialist stand-alone hospitals that do not have adequate backup. My profession, our medical schools and hospitals bear some responsibility for this; the fault is not entirely that of politicians, but let us at least leave this Chamber after these three days of debate having put firmly on the public agenda the need to reform the way in which we deliver obstetrical care in this country. We need to reform it urgently.

Let me get down to the business of the moment, the endless tendentious questioning about the suicidality issue. All of the doctors who have been here will have been here because we follow evidence. There is extremely close agreement that it will nearly never happen that a doctor will be confronted with somebody who requires an abortion on grounds of suicidality. Some believe it will actually never happen while most agree it will, at most, happen very rarely. With regard to people's concerns, I fear that Dr. Coulter-Smith may have been misquoted in the national media, and that his concerns may have been misinterpreted today. I ask him to clarify this. He alluded today to the possibility that obstetricians in general might be forced to carry out a medically unnecessary abortion because a psychiatrist indicates an abortion is necessary, and obstetricians know that the evidence base suggests it never is. For the benefit of those present, could the doctor clarify that the people who would make that decision-----