Dermot Fitzpatrick
Ceist:95 Dr. Fitzpatrick asked the Minister for Health the steps which the National Maternity Hospital, Dublin 2 have taken to review the procedures relating to the monitoring of maternity patients in labour and post-delivery.
Written Answers. - Monitoring of Maternity Patients.
As the Deputy will appreciate, it is vitally important that any hospital should have, and be seen to have, the full confidence of the public who avail of its services and who, in the case of a public voluntary hospital, as taxpayers provide the bulk of its finances.
A situation has now arisen where the circumstances surrounding the tragic case of the Dunne family have given rise to comment which might undermine public confidence in the overall services provided by the hospital. As I indicated in my reply to an earlier question on this issue, if the circumstances of this or any other case point to the need for a review of polices or procedures in a particular service it will be dealt with as part of an overall review of the service concerned.
I reiterated these views and my concern that public confidence in the hospital should not be undermined when I met recently with the deputy chairman and the master of the hospital.
I was pleased therefore to learn last week of the decision by the hospital to invite a distinguished nominee of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists from the United Kingdom to undertake within the coming weeks an independent review of the hospital's practices and procedures.