Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Amendment No. 3 in my name and in the names of my colleagues in People Before Profit-Solidarity states:

To delete all words after “Dáil Éireann” and substitute the following:

“notes:— that maternity hospitals are not just for supporting women through childbirth but should provide the full range of reproductive health services, with due respect to the bodily autonomy and human dignity of their patients, coordinated with primary care services and GPs and that this fact should be reflected in the hospitals written policies and their available services;

— the failure of the Religious Sisters of Charity Ireland to compensate victims of abuse and neglect in its residential Mother and Baby Homes and its continued failure to adequately fund the State Redress Scheme;

— the failure of health facilities run or under the influence of this religious order to provide services, products, procedures and operations required by citizens in the areas of reproductive health;

— that reproductive health services in publically funded hospitals should provide a spectrum of birth control services including information, contraception (including sterilisation), the morning after pill, early medical abortion and surgical abortion services, in addition to all other services currently available;

— that the quality of information made available should be a priority so as women can make informed decisions on their health;

— that since 2011, maternity services in Ireland have been marked with investigations and, in some cases, alleged cover ups of maternal and child mortality or injury in Portiuncula Hospital as well as University Hospital Galway, Portlaoise, Cavan, and Drogheda;

— that Ireland has the lowest number of consultant obstetricians per 100,000 women in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and a consultant obstetrician in Ireland is responsible for 597 births per annum, compared to 268 in Scotland;

— that the three Dublin maternity hospitals are operating at a 17 per cent deficit in the number of midwifery staff needed to run the services;

— that most of the 19 maternity units do not offer foetal anomaly screening, as prenatal ultrasound assessments by qualified sonographers and foetal medicine specialists are not available outside larger units;

— that, despite the enactment of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013, there is a dearth of perinatal psychiatrists and other specialists;

— the serious inequalities and absence of resources, which exist within the Health Service Executive (HSE), to provide services to children with life-limiting and complex medical needs, and to those under palliative care; and

— that such shortcomings have directly led to tragic incidents involving mothers and children;acknowledges and supports the findings of:— the National Maternity Strategy, Palliative Care for Children with Life-limiting Conditions in Ireland – A National Policy by the Department of Health, the HSE National Standards for Bereavement Care following Pregnancy Loss and Perinatal Death, and the Report on End of Life and Palliative Care in Ireland by the Joint Committee on Health and Children in 2014; and

— the National Standards for Safer Better Maternity Services Report by the Health Information and Quality Authority submitted to the Minister for Health;further acknowledges:— that the Programme for a Partnership Government states it will implement the National Maternity Strategy and ‘invest in end of life care, including the provision of hospice and “end of life care” during the perinatal period, infancy, childhood and adulthood’;

— the need for continuity of care for women and parents during pregnancy, at the point of delivery and after birth, inclusive of where children have life-limiting conditions;

— the need to support bereaved parents in their transition out of hospital, with appropriate services and the availability of frontline bereavement counselling;

— that the above is best delivered by clinical teams basing their decisions on best clinical practice and not in any way beholden to any religious ethos; and

— the plans to move the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street to new, modern facilities at St. Vincent’s Hospital campus; andcalls on the Government to:— ensure that the new National Maternity Hospital is built on the St. Vincent’s Hospital campus as quickly as possible, remains entirely within public ownership and has legally guaranteed independence from all non-clinical interference in its clinical operations within the laws of the State;

— issue a compulsory purchase order for the lands at St Vincent’s Hospital, in order to proceed with the building on this site of the National Maternity Hospital;

— declare that all State funded hospitals will provide all operations and procedures that may be required in the event of a change in abortion laws, including the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly;

— ensure the Religious Sisters of Charity Ireland, and any other religious organisation, is precluded from any control over, or any operational function in, the running of the new National Maternity Hospital;

— honour commitments in the Programme for a Partnership Government in respect of funding and implementing the National Maternity Strategy;

— ensure swift approval, dissemination and implementation of the National Maternity Standards for Safer Better Maternity Services;

— ensure all maternity hospitals have access to foetal anomaly screening, with the requisite staff and equipment;

— work with nursing and medical unions in the recruitment and retention of medical staff, so that all maternity hospitals meet the Birthrate Plus standard for midwifery staffing, as well as international standards for consultant obstetricians and gynaecologists;

— establish an independent patient advocacy service; and

— implement the recommendations of the Report on End of Life and Palliative Care in Ireland by the Joint Committee on Health and Children in 2014, prioritising those parts relating to care for children with life-limiting conditions.”

I would like to start with something that we are going to be dealing with later in the month, which is the question of how we treat and pay our hospital staff. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, is having its conference today. The Minister is probably addressing it at some point. I do not know how he will be received, but if I was a midwife working under the current conditions - and my older sister has been a midwife all her life - I would be pretty angry with the Minister, because there is much stress, staff shortages and hardship that nurses and midwives have to face on a daily basis. I say we will be dealing with this later on because we will be dealing with the public sector pay talks that are coming up. One part of the solution to the future of maternity services in Ireland is to treat maternity workers properly and to pay them properly. That refers to midwives in particular. In that way, we should be able to recruit enough of them and to retain enough of them.

I want to address not just the issue of church and State and the question of St. Vincent's hospital and its future ownership, but the wider concept of what maternity and reproductive services should be about. I do not think it is just about mother and child. I think it is also about a whole range of services relating to our reproductive health that should be available to women. I mentioned one earlier on, the question of tubal ligation. It is not available in some hospitals in this country. It should be available. It is a simple procedure.

I would also like to mention the glaringly obvious fact that we are going to, in the next few months, hopefully deal with the outcome of the Citizens Assembly. That assembly has expressed the sentiment that we have to repeal the eighth amendment and start to deliver access to abortion services in this company. In that context, the ownership and control of maternity services is fundamentally important to the ability and the future of being able to deliver those services in this country. I would like to move the amendment put by People Before Profit-Solidarity. It is quite a long amendment, as most of them are that are before us tonight. It deals with a number of issues, including the failure of the Sisters of Charity to compensate the victims of abuse and neglect in their residential homes. It also deals with providing a spectrum of birth control services, including clear and quality information. I would like to ask the Minister, and maybe he could refer to it in his reply, when we can see and if it is possible to fast-track the Bill that is before us to do away with bogus abortion information clinics.

These are cropping up as a real problem for the women in our society who are in a crisis pregnancy and seeking guidance.

Bogus abortion information clinics, sometimes in receipt of State funding, are continuing to operate with impunity. They are not regulated. It is ironic that they are not regulated but information centres that give out real, proper, decent health information are indeed regulated. There is a Bill before the House on that and we should make every effort to try and fast-track it, if we are serious about dealing with women's reproductive health in all its aspects and not just in the narrow confines of mother and baby, which of course are extraordinarily important. I have many friends and neighbours who have been through the horrors of having to carry a dead foetus for many weeks under the Irish maternity service because of the fear of the eighth amendment. Some hospital specialists are never sure that the heartbeat is gone. They might be 99% sure but not 100%, and therefore the women have to carry the foetus for another few weeks until the doctors can be sure. It is mental and physical cruelty for the women involved. We have to move on and move into the 21st century. Our amendment addresses much of that.

I welcome many of the other amendments and motions as well. There are many similarities. What goes to the heart of this debate is the elephant in the room that we must not avoid mentioning, and that is the control of State services by the Catholic Church. I am sure that the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, is probably tired of us mentioning this. He gave what I regard as quite a confusing answer earlier today. What he says is not what the bishops say, and it is certainly not what the Sisters of Charity say. Somebody is telling the truth and somebody is not. We need to get to the bottom of that.

The Minister is asking for a month. I dearly hope that the Irish people do not give him that month. We have waited too long for equality, for proper treatment for women in this country, and for us to be taken seriously so that the Catholic Church are no longer dominating our lives. I hope that the people of this country keep the pressure on the Minister and insist that the church have no say in the new maternity hospital. It will be wonderful once it is delivered, as long as the Sisters of Charity do not get a say on the board of management or any other aspect of that hospital. We need that copper-fastened, iron guarantee from the Minister. If he cannot give it now I worry that he might not be able to give it at all in one month's time. I hope that the pressure is kept up by the march next weekend by Parents for Choice - happening at 2 p.m. from Parnell Square for those who are interested in attending - and beyond that where parents are lobbying Deputies and insisting that we finally put an end to the interference of the Catholic Church in our maternity services.

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