Susan O'Keeffe (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I would place great faith in the managers, obstetricians and midwives of the hospitals that serve our communities because they have served them very well and will continue to serve them very well. I hope that when the completed reports come to the Minister and to the senior managers in the HSE, the serious viewpoints of the experienced and qualified staff will be taken into account. I am quite sure that will happen. I would place greater trust in what they have to say than in what the Senators have to say. It is as simple as that.

There have been tragic deaths in hospitals in Ireland. We all remember Savita Halappanavar with great sadness. It must be very difficult for her family to keep remembering that she died in the way she did and that her death has caused these kind of debates. We should not just mention her in passing but pause and think about what happened to her. We should also reflect on what happened to Sally Rowlette and Dhara Kivlehan who died at Sligo General Hospital.

I think we are all of the view that trying to avoid maternal deaths is always the best outcome. As the Minister has always said, patient safety should be and will remain our primary concern. I would be distraught if I thought for a moment that any review of national maternity services would do other than put patient safety first. I take his assurance that it is the primary thing. In the 21st century, the ways and means of providing maternity care have changed from the way it was provided in the past. I shall give one small mention to one of the complexities that has arisen. I refer to the numbers of older mothers who give birth and the numbers of women who are obese when giving birth, which has changed the way maternity services must be configured. I mention them solely to show that expertise is required to try to provide the sort of services that are appropriate for a changing environment and changing type of mother. These matters cannot be ignored. They have not been ignored by the research in this document. They have not been ignored by the research carried out in other areas of the world, particularly in the UK which probably has the closest profile to Ireland. The idea that we can hang on to the services that we have in the way that they are configured is a nonsense. We must do something that is different to make sure we continue to provide patient safety in the 21st century when so many things are changing.

I trust and I am assured that through having this conversation, patient safety will remain the primary concern for patients of the west, north-west, south, midlands and east regions. It is much more difficult in the north west because of geographical constraints, which I trust will be put into the mix to ensure patient safety benefits and is taken into account because we live with roads that are less good or in an area where we are, potentially, further away. I trust that patient safety will become the number one consideration in the north west. That has already been outlined in this report but the Senators, as ever, have opted to ignore it.