THE FUTURE of the midwife-led unit in Cavan General Hospital – one of only two in the Republic – seems to be assured, at least in the short term.
There were fears locally last week that an announcement to close it was imminent, although the Health Service Executive (HSE) stressed that no decision had been made. A spokeswoman said: “All service costs are currently being reviewed to ensure we live within whatever budget is allocated .”
It is understood that at a meeting last Friday it was decided Cavan’s midwife-led unit (MLU) would remain open for the time being, but that its capacity and efficiency needed to be increased.
The MLU was set up in 2004 on a pilot basis, along with one in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, Co Louth, to cater for women considered to have low-risk pregnancies.
A report on the randomised controlled trial of women attending these pilot programmes, compiled by the school of nursing and midwifery at Trinity College Dublin and published in 2009, concluded that the midwifery-led care practised “is as safe as consultant-led care, results in less intervention, is viewed by women with greater satisfaction in some aspects of care and is more cost effective”.
It found that the cost of care for each woman in the two MLUs was €332.80 per head less than in the usual hospital system. This year, up to the end of September, there were 1,555 births at Cavan General Hospital, of which 90 – or less than 6 per cent – took place in the MLU.
What will have to be looked at is why, just 80km away, there is significantly more demand for the MLU in Drogheda, where more than 10 per cent – 303 – of the 2,892 births in the hospital up to the end of September were accommodated.
"Midwifery units have been demonstrated in Irish and international research to be clinically safe, cost efficient and wanted by women," the professor of midwifery at NUI Galway, Declan Devane, told The Irish Times.
He said for some women the most appropriate care would be in obstetric units but for others the most appropriate care would be in a midwifery unit.
Prof Devane said, depending on their clinical circumstances and their own preference, these women all needed to be facilitated. There was no question the Cavan unit needed to be used to its full potential.
