National Birth Alliance
condemns agenda of Centralisation

Protest against medical plans to close over 50 per cent of the country's maternity units is increasing. Over 600 people took part in a march organised by the National Birth Alliance in Dublin on Saturday, April 5th 2003, to protest against the planned cuts in maternity services. Units in Ballinasloe, Clonmel, Castlebar, Kilkenny, Mullingar, Portlaoise, Tralee, and Wexford are threatened with closure.

Speaking at the rally, Alliance spokesperson, Marie O'Connor, condemned the Medical Manpower Forum's agenda of centralisation in hospital care, while midwife Philomena Canning identified medical monopoly as a fundamental problem in service delivery.

Centralised systems of maternity care discriminate against women, Marie O'Connor asserted. "Thirty years ago there were 108 maternity units in this country. Today there are 22. Having to drive 200 miles when you are about to have a baby is not a maternity service", she continued, "it's a form of oppression". Every year up to 150 women in Ireland give birth outside hospital, generally without professional help. The death rate for such births is very high.

Speaking of medical consultants plan to close accident and emergency units in tandem with maternity units, Ms O'Connor said: "Driving for two hours in labour is nothing compared with driving for two hours with a serious head injury".

The National Birth Alliance wants to see safe, high-quality, local maternity services in every part of Ireland. "We need a service that reflects a modern era, not one that's a product of 1970s thinking. We need midwives' clinics in the community so that women can have choice of midwife, as well as choice of doctor during pregancy". Midwife-managed care in hospitals, birth centres in the community and self-employed midwives are required "so that women are free to choose where, how and with whom to give birth".

Alliance member Philomena Canning, a self-employed midwife in Dublin, spoke about the difficulties of practising midwifery in Ireland, both in hospital and in the community. "Medical monopoly of the maternity services is one of the root causes of the problem". The recent decision of Dr Declan Keane Master of the National Maternity Hospital to withdraw blood testing and ultrasound scans from home birth mothers was a direct attempt to remove the choice of home birth from women and to compel all prospective home birth mothers to put themselves under the control of his hospital.

Denise Livingstone, whose baby died after being born at the side of the road in Monaghan last December, spoke about women's right to maternity care, a right that they have been denied for too long.

Kathy Sinnott, the noted health campaigner, spoke about how mismanaging birth could lead to cerebral palsy: "Cerebral palsy is the most common price babies and their families pay for a birth gone wrong". "A normal delivery" she continued "can be turned into a disaster by distance, disruption, by management and mismanagement. The State will say that that they close local maternity services to serve mothers and babies better in centralised high-tech units. but this is a lie."

Patricia McKenna MEP, John Gormley TD, Caoimhghin O Caolain TD and Paudge Connolly TD, who was elected on a hospital ticket, were also on the platform, along with Deirdre Daly, a midwifery tutor from one of the 12 maternity hospitals threatened with closure, the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin.

For further details, please contact:
© Marie O’Connor of the National Birth Alliance throught the contact us page or through the email link below

© National Birth Alliance An Chomhghuallaiocht Naisiunta Breithe