Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I join with others in wishing the Taoiseach and his wife Fionnuala well. I have only shared this Chamber with him for a short period of time but it has certainly been a positive experience on my part. I wish to raise maternity services at Mayo University Hospital. I am sure the Taoiseach is very much briefed and aware of the situation there. Staff, unions and management have been to the Workplace Relations Commission as a result of the strike action a number of months ago. They are all in agreement that there is a staff shortage. According to a lady who gave birth just two months ago, when she entered the hospital on 25 March to have her baby, there was one main midwife and just about two qualified two midwives on duty. She said that as she was having her baby, two other women were having their babies as well. She said that she had just given birth when the midwife had to go running to two other rooms and then another. She said that she felt so sorry for this midwife and that it was lucky that there were no complications with her delivery because if there had been, there was nobody else there to help her. The issue has been ongoing for many months and the situation is not improving. The issue apparently concerns the fact that there are only temporary contracts on offer, which is not enough to entice people to take up those positions. Could the Taoiseach raise this matter with the Minister for Health and ask him to personally attend at Mayo University Hospital to deal directly with this issue?

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