Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Seanad Éireann - noting –

- the deep disquiet about the proposed reconfiguration of obstetrician-led maternity services in the West and North West hospital group following the emergence of a private and confidential Health Service Executive (HSE) report on the matter prepared by Health Consultants Health Partnership in February of this year;
- that there are clear signs that the HSE is considering downgrading maternity services at Sligo Regional Hospital, Mayo General Hospital, Portiuncula Hospital and Letterkenny General Hospital and other centres throughout the country; and
- that Ireland has the lowest ratio of obstetricians to patients in the OECD;

agrees that –

- any such downgrading would compel expectant mothers in the area to travel much further to access the necessary obstetrician-led maternity services;
- there is a need for investment in maternity and neo-natal services across the country; and
- providing accessible, safe and high quality obstetrician-led maternity services to all mothers and babies, regardless of where they live must be a core objective of public health policy;
and

calls for –

- the publication of all interim and/or draft reports provided to the HSE on the review of Maternity Services for each hospital group area and the terms of reference prescribed for the preparation of same;
- confirmation of the continuity of obstetrician-led maternity services at Sligo Regional Hospital, Mayo General Hospital, Portiuncula Hospital and Letterkenny General Hospital following the ongoing review into maternity services countrywide;
- the HSE to focus on attracting the necessary number of qualified consultant obstetricians to facilitate an accessible, safe, high quality obstetrician-led maternity service to all existing maternity centres nationally and to promote obstetrics as a career option among our medical professionals in order to achieve this and in order to overcome the challenges that our obligations under the working time directive present; and
- maternity services at Sligo General Hospital, Mayo General Hospital, Letterkenny General Hospital and Portiuncula Hospital to be retained.

The Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly and I have had a couple of opportunities recently to discuss this issue. As he is aware, following last week's elections, particularly in counties Leitrim, Sligo, South Donegal and others, this is a serious issue that exercises many people and there is much concern about it. The Minister and I have had the benefit of debating this as a matter on the Adjournment when I questioned his word on the issue on the basis that he had broken his word on other issues. I now have the report whereas at the time of the previous debate I had only rumours of what it would contain. When the Health Service Executive was first asked about it, Setanta Communications Limited, which it employs, denied the existence of a report but quickly acknowledged that it did exist and said that it came to no decisions. It is marked "strictly confidential" and the title is High Level Review of Maternity Services in the West Northwest Hospital Group. The Health Partnership is the consultancy firm that undertook the study.

It is dated February 2014. It exists and there are a number of options set out in it. Four of them include the closure or downgrading of Portiuncula Hospital, and others include the downgrade or closure of Sligo Regional Hospital and Mayo General Hospital at Castlebar. It seems to question the Higgins report from last year on the hospital groups, which stated that Letterkenny hospital, as a result of its geographic location and similar to Kerry and Wexford general hospitals, should retain its full range of emergency department, surgical, maternity and paediatric services.

The Government in its amendment argues that this report has no status. What did the report cost and is the HSE in the business of spending people's money on reports which have no status? When I first raised this matter I wanted to know the terms of reference given to the Health Partnership but nobody is prepared to tell me what are those terms. We also want to know what other reports exist. Do all the hospital groupings have similar reports that are seeking to downgrade or shut maternity services? What is the position?

I was accused of scaremongering and being highly political about this before.