Madam, – The letter from Marie O’Connor (December 29th) certainly paints an appalling vista of what will happen if the legislation before the Dáil goes through without amendment. With the pressure on Dáil time this could well happen.
As well as the proposed changes in law, what has been happening is a centralisation of hospital services in major cities. In the case of west Cork this means women in labour must travel to University Hospital Cork. This is 65 miles from Skibbereen and up to a 100 miles from remoter parts.
Surely the indicated contract in concentrating hospital services is to provide the transport services to get there? Nothing vaguely like that has happened in west Cork. The roads were terrible, but with the latest weather they are even worse. It is difficult to see the logic of criminalising midwives who could facilitate home births for healthy women, sparing them what could only be a fraught journey on indifferent roads.
It is surely vital the proposed Nurses and Midwives Bill is well scrutinised and debated before passing into law.
– Yours, etc,