Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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953. To ask the Minister for Health if the restrictions will be reviewed and amended with regard to chosen partners being allowed accompany and offer support to women in labour in maternity hospitals (details supplied). [27157/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I acknowledge that the current restrictions in maternity hospitals are presenting difficulties and this is hugely regrettable.  However, it is necessary to reduce footfall in order to protect women, babies, staff and our maternity service as a whole. 

Maternity hospitals have performed well during the pandemic and have continued to keep women, babies and staff safe.  The fact that there have been no Covid maternal deaths in this country, and that we have a had a low incidence in pregnant women, suggests that the current approach is working.

However, we must remain vigilant as services resume and higher numbers of people attend hospitals. Maternity hospitals rely on very specialised personnel; should an outbreak of COVID-19 occur in a maternity hospital, the ability to provide safe, quality care would be severely impacted.  It should be remembered that maternity hospitals care for fragile infants at the extremes of prematurity.

All maternity hospitals are challenged by the pandemic, but those challenges vary considerably.  Decisions on any restrictions are therefore made, implemented and reviewed at hospital level.

Decisions to restrict visitors in our maternity hospitals have not been taken lightly.  Management and staff are acutely aware of the very important support provided by partners at the time of birth.  I have been assured that maternity hospitals wish to facilitate this support as far as possible.   In that context, I can assure the Deputy that any restrictions currently in place have been minimised as much as possible and will be subject to ongoing review. 

I note that restrictions have eased somewhat in certain hospitals in recent weeks and I hope this will continue.  However, the recent rise in the numbers of people infected with the virus, including healthcare workers, is very worrying and may impact on the pace of the easing of restrictions.

The Deputy may wish to note that the National Women & Infants Health Programme has developed a guidance document on restrictions in maternity hospitals/units and this issued to all maternity services last week. The paper seeks to ensure a consistent national approach to visitor restrictions, as far as is practicable and having due regard to local circumstances.   Each maternity service/network has been requested to review visiting arrangements on a weekly basis, in the context of the issues and factors identified in the paper.